


let not man put asunder

by lord_is_it_mine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Alternate Canon, Angst, Angst and Romance, Biblical References, Birthday Sex, Blood, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Cover Art, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Fanmix, First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, Ghosts, Hand Jobs, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Injury, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Masturbation, Metaphors, Minor Dean/Original Character(s), Monsters, Near Death, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Romance, Sam is Eighteen Years Old, Saving People Hunting Things, Sexual Tension, Sibling Incest, Similes, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Stigmatic Sam, Taboo, Tags May Change, Underage Drinking, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-07-15 07:07:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7212703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lord_is_it_mine/pseuds/lord_is_it_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks he knows now, what the good book was talking about when it said <i>'man shall cleave unto'<i></i></i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dust to dust

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how to explain this fic other than that I've been in the Supernatural fandom for years and was never into this ship until sometime last year when my SO (this fic goes out to you babe) told me about the works of [candle_beck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/candle_beck/pseuds/candle_beck/works?fandom_id=27) and how amazing they are. I went and read them and was then inspired to write this, which was supposed to be about half the size of what it turned into (story of my writing life). I seriously recommend reading candle_beck's Sam/Dean stories (if you haven't already). If you have, well, go read them again I guess. I know I will be.
> 
> [Cover Art (by me)](http://bvcki.tumblr.com/post/147375481529/let-not-man-put-asunder-by-lordisitmine-he).  
> [My Main Tumblr](http://www.bvcki.tumblr.com).  
> [My Supernatural Tumblr](http://www.alreadycursed.tumblr.com).  
> [My Tumblr tag for this fic](http://www.alreadycursed.tumblr.com/tagged/lnmpa).  
> [let not man put asunder soundtrack](http://8tracks.com/lady-day/let-not-man-put-asunder).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all at once, with a single bright burst of light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The literal last thing I should be doing right now is starting another WIP. I have so many other WIP fics and so many other deadlines but this fic is already mostly written and I need something to help me push through the block I'm having with everything else. Sometimes you just gotta write where the wind takes you I guess.
> 
> I'm gonna put in-depth warnings for each chapter in each chapter's end notes, so people who don't want to see them/don't want spoilers don't have to until they've already read the chapter don't have to see them if they choose not to. So if you //do// want those warnings, just, his the "more notes at the end" thing (god I love ao3).

_ _

**_"Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."_ **

_\- Matthew 19:6_

* * *

Sam falls in love with Dean like salted bones go up in flames; all at once, with a single bright burst of light and heat that'll knock you off your feet if you stand too close. It's over in an instant, but the smoke fills your lungs and it _lasts_. You breathe in, breathe out, but some of the ash stays there, clinging to the back of your throat or staining your sweaty skin- you go to rub it off and the mark only gets darker. Even after it's been rinsed away, there's still a ghost of it, grains burnt into your skin that may never truly wash out. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Birth to life to death.

* * *

At this very moment, Sam is seventeen years old; he has been seventeen years old for two months and eight days. At this very moment, Sam is lying barely conscious on the dusty floor of an abandoned lighthouse somewhere on the Maryland coast. The warmth of blood oozes between his fingers where they press to a gaping wound, right where his neck meets his shoulder. It aches more than it burns, his whole body fighting to function despite the sudden loss of blood.

He can barely see through the dim morning light- the coastal sunrise outside is obscured and perverted by the dirty porthole windows high on the walls. His vision begins to blur at the edges, darkness ready to swallow him completely at any moment. There is a vampire somewhere in this room; it took Sam's machete and got in something of a glancing blow to Sam before it was knocked across the room, into the shadows where the portholes cannot see.

Sam is vaguely aware of Dean standing over him, one foot next to Sam's injured shoulder, the other by Sam's hip. From this extreme angle, he looks every inch the saviour Sam has always thought him to be. His shoulders are broad and impossibly tense- he bares his teeth at the vampire, as if he is a wild animal protecting its wounded mate. There is an inhuman rage in his eyes, and Sam coughs slightly in what would be a laugh, were the circumstances any different. This vengeful creature- his _brother_ \- this is what monsters look for under their beds and in the backs of darkened closets.

"If you come near him again, I will _kill_ you," Dean growls, spinning the knife in his hand as if he was born holding it.

"Of course," he grins, "I was plannin' on killin' you anyway."

The vampire lunges, and it's pretty much over before it even starts. Dean plunges the knife deep into its throat, using the moment of shock to take back the machete and slice cleanly through the rest of the vampire's neck. Its head falls at Dean's feet, followed by its body. Sam can see the shocked look on its ghostly face as its head rolls away- he feels vindicated. And then the whole world almost goes dark.

The fury in Dean's body rushes out of him with every exhale, and he falls to his knees, straddling Sam's chest and leaning over the thick blood pooling beneath his brother's body. As he breathes out his killer's high, panic invades his lungs- it tastes metallic and smells like death. Sam's eyes are rolling back into his head, and the hand pressed to his neck wound begins to falter as he loses consciousness. Dean slides his own hand under Sam's, his other cradling the side of Sam's head, fingers pulling softly through his blood-matted hair.

"Come on Sam, come _on_ , stay _with me_!" He yells, the words sharp on his lips despite the thickness in his throat.

"Dean, I'm sorry, it got me- I-"

"Shut up Sam, it's not your fault," Dean tells him, just grateful that Sam's still talking. "Just keep talking, don't- don't fall asleep." Dean's hand slips, only slightly, but it's enough to let a new spurt of blood gush out, filling the dip above Sam's collarbones.

"Dean! What the hell happened?" John rushes in, another machete in hand, flecks of blood over his face. The other vampires must be dead, then.

"It got the drop on us, Dad," Dean confesses, leaving out the part where he let Sam go in ahead of him, allowing this whole mess to happen. _How could I have let this happen_?

"How could you have let this happen?" Their father shouts, rushing to his son's side. Dean knows that if his hand wasn't the only thing keeping Sam alive, he'd have been thrown on the floor next to the dead vampire by now.

"Dad, it's not Dean's fault, it's my fault, it's my-" Sam coughs wetly, and his eyes fall closed, just as his body goes completely limp. Pure, solid panic barrels into Dean like he's the Florida coast in storm season.

 _"_ Don't _do_ this to me! Sammy _please_ , you can't do this to me. Sam! God _damn it_!"

Dean _feels_ the screams being wrenched from his throat more than he actually _hears_ them- it feels like swallowing sandpaper and spitting fire and he can't stop, not even after Sam opens his eyes again while they're driving breakneck fast to the closest hospital. Those eyes are glinting brown and green and golden in the early morning sun as it pushes over the ocean, and Dean just can't stop staring into them, willing Sammy to stay alive and telling John to _drive faster, for fuck's sake!_

Not once does Dean say _he's dying, Dad! Drive faster!_

It's not clear if Sam is awake or asleep anymore, but if there's any chance at all that he can hear Dean giving up, then Dean will personally march himself to the gates of hell.

The last things Sam _sees_ and _feels_ and _smells_ are as follows: Dean's eyes, shining teary green and never leaving Sam's own. Dean's hands, one on his wound and one on his face, constantly brushing over his forehead in an oceanic rhythm that is soothing and maddening and everything Sam would ask for were his voice not failing him. Dean's leather jacket, musty and like home, covered in Sam's blood as if it were a house and Sam were bleeding through the cracks in the floorboards, binding himself to this chosen foundation, a pact as sacred as the oldest rituals in John's journal.

The last thing Sam _hears_ : Dean's voice, shrill and unyielding, like he believes if he screams loud enough, the roads themselves with shrink in fear and the Impala will reach the hospital before either Sam or Dean gives up. Dean isn't giving up. Sam tries not to.

The last thing Sam _thinks_ : _I love him._

 _Oh_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: there's a lot of blood. Sam is gravely wounded. Basically your typical day in the Supernatural world. 
> 
> And yes, I do know that before season one, Sam and Dean didn't know vampires existed. I hadn't watched the show in a while when I wrote this, and when I realised my mistake, I also realised I couldn't think of a better creature for the scene (and I never understood how they could have hunted with their dad for so long and not at least heard about a vampire attack) so I said ah fuck it. Saying "ah fuck it" is what we fic writers specialize in.


	2. so it goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> like a week-old bruise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full warnings in the end notes! (beware of spoilers)

Dean falls in love with Sam like finding a week-old bruise on your leg and not remembering how you got it. You press your fingers to it and it _aches_ , dull yellow and sickly green around the edges, but you can't remember how it got there. You try and make a list of everything you've bumped into or fallen on recently- nothing bad enough to leave a mark that would last for this long. Your memory fails you, but you know this bruise has been there for a while. You'd have noticed it sooner were it in a more obvious place. You can go on ignoring it, but it's there. It may fade with time, but you will get bruised again. So it goes.

* * *

"He's a very lucky young man. He was well on the way to fifty percent blood volume loss when you brought him in. Any longer and it's safe to say he wouldn't have made it. We'll need to keep him here for a few days, just until his red blood cell count is back up to where it should be. The stitches will need to be taken out in a few weeks, but you can have that done at any clinic. Right now, our main concern is making sure your son gets a whole lot of rest and fluids."

Dean doesn't really hear this; it's not that he's ignoring it on _purpose_ \- he just can't pull enough of his attention away from Sam's seventeen stitches in order to actually process the words coming out off the doctor's mouth; Sam will be _okay_. Sam will _live_. It's a difficult thing to understand- Sam has been unconscious for nearly twenty-four hours, his face sheet white, skin stretched paper-thin over his bones- and even though Dean can _see_ the blood flowing blue in Sam's wrists and the soft crooks of his elbows, it's hard to imagine Sam as anything but a wandering spirit.

 _Come back to me_ , Dean thinks, like when Sam was nine and Dean told him that siblings can communicate telepathically, and that _no, Sam, it's not just for twins- how did you even know that? Nerd._

 _Come back to me,_ he thinks _. We're blood, remember? We're always pumping through each other's veins_.

"Thank-you Doctor," John says, feigning half of the concern in his face. He's still boiling mad, Dean knows. If it weren't for the fact that Sam is basically comatose and that most trained medical professionals can smell a drunk a mile away, John would be in blackout mode right now and Dean would have the black eyes to serve as the proof of John's blood alcohol level.

Dean is lucky- some people don't need to be angry _and_ drunk to beat their own kids- some people do it _just because_.

"When will he wake up?" Dean asks, voice barely there, like Sam's pulse under his fingers. He hasn't let go of Sam's hand since Sam got out of surgery, for fear that if he does, there will be absolutely no proof of Sam's soul still knocking around in that gangly body of his. He trains his eyes on Sam's chest. It's hardly even moving.

"We've been keeping him out through the worst of it, but as of an hour ago, we took him off the sedatives- it should be any time within the next fifteen to thirty minutes," The doctor tells Dean reassuringly, walking to stand beside him. She- the doctor is a she- white coat, perfume like cherries, caramel-coloured skin and pretty brown eyes that Dean doesn't even notice. She hangs Sam's medical charts over the bed rail. Dean's always thought that's the only thing the bedrails are good for. People in comas don't tend to roll off onto the floor all by themselves. The doctor lady puts a reassuring, chemically sterile smelling hand on Dean's shoulder.

"He'll be out of it for the first few hours- even without the sedatives, he's still on some pretty powerful pain-killers. Press the call button when he wakes up, we'll have a nurse come in and check his vitals." She turns to John and smiles, a mechanical grin that reminds Dean of soap opera acting- forced and over-selling it. He wonders how someone whose job is mostly calling time of death could ever find it in themselves to practice smiling in the mirror. Maybe he should ask for pointers. The footsteps of sensible shoes fade out behind him, and he knows they're alone once again; the atmosphere of the room has keeled over into dark and threatening instead of gloomy and annoyed.

"I'm going to clean up the lighthouse," John grumbles, grabbing his jacket from the back of the only comfortable chair in the room. Dean's surprised he even took it off in the first place- he's been itching to get out of here ever since they got in.

"If I trusted you not to fuck up something so simple," the _'like keeping your brother safe'_ is implied, "I'd be sending your ass out to do it. We'll talk about your punishment later. Sam had _better_ be alive when I get back."

The door slams, as much as a pneumatic-hinged slam-proof door can.

"Yeah, like it'll be _my_ fault if he _isn't_ ," Dean mutters half-heartedly. Normally he lives for smart-assing John behind his back. Mostly it's for the way Sam's eyes light up when he does it. Mostly everything Dean lives for revolves around Sam. And this time, he knows his dad is right. This is his fault.

There were three vamps to kill; one broke from the fight and ran inside the lighthouse- Sam and Dean were sent after it by John, who had the other two cornered. Sam wanted to go in first, to have his shining _make dad proud_ moment- Sam was the one with the machete, and Dean had been seventeen once. He didn't argue.

He should have argued. It's all the two of them ever do- bicker and banter and pick on each other like kids on a playground- so of course the _one_ time Dean goes along without a fight and Sam is nearly dead. Dean's never gonna hear the end of this.

When he's sure that none of the hospital staff are going to poke their noses anywhere near him for the foreseeable future, he finally moves from his statuesque vigil- his joints are stiff, muscles slow to move, and he feels like he could be one of those tombstone angel sculptures brought to life- Sam won't be buried today, so no tombstone is needed.

Dean pulls on the peachy-pink curtain, closing it in a semi-circle around the bed; none of the other beds in the room are occupied (thank God for slow days in small town hospitals), but he can't risk anyone walking in and seeing what he's actually allowing himself to do. He flinches internally at the screech of the curtain's metal rings against the rail. He looks at Sam- thankfully, he hasn't stirred.

He takes a deep breath and climbs onto the bed- it's a tight fit, with Sam flat on his back and completely unresponsive (Dean will _not_ think of him as _dead_ weight), but he manages to slide in on his side, laying his head on Sam's uninjured shoulder. His arm naturally falls over Sam's waist- it's instinctual to pull him closer, but right now they are quite literally attached at the hip- hip-to-hip, chest-to-chest, really. Dean tries to will all his body heat through the places where their bodies are touching. Sam is cold and _thin_ and Dean makes a mental list of all the things he's gonna make Sam eat as soon as Sam is well enough, because winter is coming sooner than you'd think (even if it is only July) and sometimes Sam looks like a stiff breeze would knock him over- right now he looks like one _has_. Most people who are attacked by vampires aren't even close to being half as lucky.

There's a green plastic clock on the wall behind Dean's back- he can hear it ticking, and he wants to count minutes, but then he thinks he sees Sam's mouth move, and every last one of his thoughts scatters like cellar rats when the sun gets let in. It turns out to be nothing of course, but time becomes impossible to tell after that, with Dean's eyes never leaving Sam's face and his mind following suit. He clings to Sam like a dangling man to the edge of a cliff, even though it's clear that he's nowhere near in danger of falling anymore.

When he finally scrambles up onto solid ground, he imagines what he would have done if Sam had never made it past the lighthouse, or past the back seat of the Impala that now shares more DNA with Sam than Dean himself does. The world he pictures without Sam is impossible to exist in- it consists of what-ifs and abandoned sea-front homes falling off their cliffs and into the ocean. The sky looks so much bigger, or maybe it's just empty now, no more obscure constellations hung there just because Sam isn't around to somehow know their names.

Dean looks at Sam again, and the sky in his mind fills with stars, big and bright and shooting in a million directions. Sam is the sun, steady and unwavering from his place at the center of Dean's existence. Dean could easily pass for the Earth, trapped in the sun's orbit, unable to escape- but unable to survive were the sun ever to release it.

 _I love him_ , Dean thinks.

_Oh._

Sam's eyes flicker open like a bad radio signal coming into focus. They are grey-green and amber-golden all at once, opalescent in the washy pastel light of the late afternoon sun that bleeds through the curtain. They glint like cat's eye marbles and shine despite the fact that they're still cloudy with drug-induced sleep.

Dean can't even process his new and frightening discovery, because that discovery has taken control of his body, kicking his heart into high gear until it's all the way up in his throat, like he could choke on it. He's basically forgotten to breathe until Sam's hand (the one not held down by IV tubes and blood pressure cuffs) drifts up to Dean's face. His fingertips barely touch it for the way he has to reach up over the arm that Dean has around his body. Dean pulls back and covers Sam's hand with his, like he did to stop the bleeding- Sam's skin is cold and fragile, translucent over his knuckles when Dean holds them to his lips- not yet a gesture that would be considered to taboo- _he's getting there_.

"Dean?" Sam croaks, mouth dry and throat burning. He's only aware of this and Dean holding his hand, pressing his lips to the back of it like it's the rosary and he's on his sixth _Hail Mary_.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean whispers against Sam's numb skin, breathing the life back into him with just the sheer relief in his low, hoarse voice.

"S'this _heaven_?" Stupid question, comes out slurred- and yeah, Sam's either dead or stoned- because the way Dean's looking at him right now has to be _some_ kind of hallucination.

"No. But I'd say it's pretty damn close," Dean laughs- or sighs. It's hard to tell from Sam's half-asleep point of view. Memories of the back seat seep into his mind like rainwater through the ground, and Sam _remembers_ now, exactly _why_ Dean being pressed up against him and kissing his hand would compare to heaven (or a really good acid trip). One way or another, he's still not completely convinced that this is reality. And by _that_ logic, none of his actions will have any consequences. So he uses what little strength he has to pull his hand away from Dean's face and push forward, praying that it's enough to get him where he wants to go.

The kiss is so chaste that it can barely be called a kiss at all- it is defined less by their lips touching and more by the breath that passes between them when they break apart.

And just like that, Dean is dust in the wind, scattered, lost to the rhythm of Sam's chest pulling him closer like Dean's heart is the tide and Sam's breaths are the moon. He slides his hand behind Sam's head and starts another kiss, (lather, rinse, repeat)- it's an involuntary action that he never knew he had. The second (third, fourth) kiss is less than gentle, though Dean means it to be- but his mouth is _hungry_ , and Sam's mouth is _feeding_ him, and maybe if he gives this all he's got now, then he won't ever need to do it again- get it out of his system, nip it in the bud. He doesn't realise that the roots of it are already wrapped in his lungs and around his ribs, the flowers of it threatening to bloom right there in his wind pipe. He can cut away the worst of it when his teeth graze Sam's lip, but weeds spread best under the surface.

Dean hears voices in the hallway- this is yet another miracle in and of itself (two in one day), but at least this one's got an explanation- you don't survive in his world without near superhuman senses. Sam is oblivious, compliant but not passive under Dean's touch, giving back just as much as he gets. But the voices are getting closer. The door handle is turning.

Dean hops off the bed like it's on fire, like his face is. He whips the curtain open so fast he almost rips it, and turns to face the window all before the nurse whisks into the room, her sensible shoes squealing on the scrubbed linoleum.

"Good, you're awake," she says cheerily, until her eyes fall on the monitors. Sam looks at them too, wanting to know what's so important, still not completely with it.

"You're heart rate's a little high, sweetie." She looks back to his face, keeping her smile switched on like a neon sign, though it looks like a bulb's about to burst. "And your face is a little red." She looks at the monitors again. "Your temperature's normal." She follows with a penlight to the pupils asks him the date, if he knows where he is- and he freezes.

"Wait, hold on- this is _real_?" His voice sounds nothing like what he thought it would- he thought Dean had taken the voice right out of him.

Her laugh is comparable to the song of a caged bird.

"Oh, it's real honey. Real as real can be." She ignores the six different emotions present on his face and pours water from a plastic yellow pitcher into a plastic yellow cup. He drinks it, washing away Dean's taste, or trying to. _Is_ he trying to? Maybe, maybe not- either way, it doesn't work.

"You're doing _fine,_ Sam." His name on her lips feels more forced than 'sweetie' or 'honey', but she does the almost-maternal thing well enough. He doesn't really notice it though, not when he's staring off into space wondering if he was always just a kiss away from everything being fucked to hell. The retreating squeak of her rubber soles punctuated by the hiss and click of the door shutting signals that he is now free to speak.

"Dean," he tries, once again hoarse and timid, "what the _hell_ just happened?"

Dean doesn't reply. He eventually turns back around and sits in the chair by the window, the blush on his face like an allergic reaction, swelling that won't go down. Dean tries not to look at Sam except for when he can't bear not to- Sam doesn't try to talk to him again, doesn't try to storm his walls, but he watches Dean _constantly_. Dean keeps his eyes fixed on the bruises colouring most of Sam's neck, spreading from under the bandage that's holding the stitches in place. He looks at the bruise and thinks about how stupid he is. That's all he thinks about. For all of his impulsiveness, he can be a master of self-control in life or death situations. He wonders when his relationship with Sam became a life or death situation. It used to be the only thing that _wasn't_ \- his candle in the window, his port in a storm.

Has he always just been a kiss away from everything being fucked to hell?

John returns at some point. Sam has lapsed back into open-mouthed sleep, making it easier for Dean to avoid his eyes. He does this for the rest of Sam's hospital stay- whether he lurks in the hallway or hides in the car, it has the added bonus of not having to deal with _The Wrath of John_ right now. Dean eats stale hospital jell-o in the equally stale hospital cafeteria and replays the movie of his life, starting with the scene where he was sixteen and in the hospital with several abrasions and a minor concussion.

There was a vengeful spirit that had flung him around; nothing he wouldn't experience a thousand times over in future years. But while Sam was huddled in the corner with a book (he was already reading the kind that were thicker than his own arm), John was lecturing Dean on _How Not To Die In A Ghost Fight But Mostly How Not To Bring Shame Eternal To The Man Who Raised You 101_. These are lessons Dean received many times, along with pounding headaches and itchy stitches under iodine stains- Dean has never seen Sam get one of these talks. He peeks through the window in the door and Sam is awake, sitting silently with John like he's just had his appendix out and _not_ royally fucked up a hunt.

Dean should have realised Sam would be the favourite- he should have realised it the moment his dad didn't carry them _both_ out of the house fire himself. No man gives his favourite son the responsibility of another life.

Some might look at John Winchester and say he's 'harder' on Dean because he cares _more_ \- that would only be true if John Winchester's parenting manual wasn't written by Jack Daniels with a foreword by Smith & Wesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The general warnings for the aftermath of violence I guess. Sam and Dean kiss. Technically that's underage but like. Nothing overtly sexual happens.


	3. call it even

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we're blood, remember?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this is such a short chapter, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles (or the way the plot separates, as the case may be). As always, warnings for this chapter are in the end notes. If you haven't already seen the added tags, you might want to skip ahead and read the warnings.

They leave the hospital exactly sixty-six hours and thirty-two minutes after they arrived (not that Dean is counting). The bill is paid in full by fraudulent insurance, and Sam announces that he is, quote: 'sick to death of that hospital sludge and would kill for a cheeseburger'. They go straight to the nearest twenty-four hour diner (it's the time of night that requires one of those). Dean has become almost completely used to sitting kind of upright in uncomfortable chairs while being in a constant state of semi-consciousness, so what's another hour of wear and tear on his spine? He's young- he can take it.

Sam sits across from him in the red vinyl booth and orders twice as much food as he normally does- John spares no expense, surprisingly. Probably because he's burned through the current fake identity's assets and this is the last thing he'll use the credit card for before moving on to the next scam. So why not, right?

All Dean wants is pie and sleep, and he checks one of them off his list with a huge slice of blueberry that, if it tasted as good as it looked, would have cracked his top five blueberry pies of all time. With how it _actually_ tastes, it's top twenty, _maybe_.

Dean is so tired that he can only focus on one thing at a time, and right now, that one thing is pie, and for that, he's grateful. But at the end of the meal John gets up to pay the check or go take a piss (or both), and for the first time since the kiss, Sam and Dean are left alone with each other.

It's been almost two days. They've had plenty of time to think it over in their own corners, but the bell rings and it's a metaphorical boxing match waiting to happen. A silent storm ensues between them, lasting minutes that feel like hours.

They both know what they want to say, but they also know what _should_ be said. And as human as they are, as much as hearts want what hearts want, what _should_ be wins out.

"Dean-" Sam starts. Dean finishes.

"It was adrenaline, it was nerves, it was whatever means that it meant _nothing_. You hear me, Sam? It never happened, and it'll never happen again."

"Good," Sam mutters as John comes back within earshot; he hopes no one hears his heart sinking like a balloon that's lost its air, hissing and screaming as it flies erratically through the air before it dive-bombs to the ground. "Glad we're on the same page."

Dean eyes him warily- but Sam's better at hiding his feelings than Dean thinks he is.

When they get back to the motel, John gets drunk and punches a hole in the wall- Sam is pretending to be asleep, so if asked, he couldn't say whether the hole in the wall came before or after Dean's broken nose and dislocated shoulder.

He _does_ know, though he wish he didn't.

It was:

Hole in the wall- cracking panelled wood through to plaster beside the bathroom door.

Broken nose- Dean keeping his pain nonverbal, though Sam didn't need to imagine the expression on his face.

Dislocated shoulder- Dean tried to leave but was stopped by being pinned to the other bed. He couldn't keep quiet this time, howling like a wounded animal when John kneels on his spine and twists his arm back.

 _Sam_ is the one who flinches when the joint pops. _Sam_ is the one who flinches when John helps Dean pop it back in a minute later. Isn't Dean big enough to fight him off yet? Isn't he _strong_ enough?

Sam knows that Dean isn't to blame for this beating.

 _I'll take the blame for your pain, and you'll take the blame for mine_ , Sam thinks in Dean's direction like when he was nine and Dean told him that siblings can communicate telepathically, and that _no, Sam, it's not just for twins- how did you even know that? Nerd._

How many more times does John have to hit Dean before _Sam_ gets a black eye?

 _We're blood, remember? We're always pumping through each other's veins_.

Someone- John- leaves the room, the opening and shutting of the motel door an all too familiar sound. Sam grew up with that sound like other kids grew up with their mom humming softly to herself in the kitchen at breakfast.

Dean collapses onto the other bed a while later with a groan of pain- the mattress springs make an identical noise. Sam doesn't say a thing; he won't risk letting Dean know he listened to the fight and did nothing. The kicker is that Dean would tell Sam not to intervene, _ever_.

It's probably for the best that Sam remains silent- if he _did_ speak, he would break the _'it never happened and won't ever again_ ' rule (he and Dean _aren't_ on the same page- they're not even in the same _book_ , and it _kills_ him). The realisation of being in love with Dean is still churning inside of him; it hasn't settled yet, it's in his throat- if he opens his mouth, his mouth will run away and take his body with it- he'll jump into bed with Dean in a different way then he's been doing all his life- he likes to think that Dean wouldn't stop him. But he grinds his teeth and keeps trying to tell Dean the same thing, over and over and over.

_I'll take the blame for your pain, and you'll take the blame for mine._

He wishes more than anything that they could just call it even already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so, I really don't like John Winchester (in case the tags didn't make that obvious). I tagged for physical/child abuse, because there's a scene in this chapter where he breaks Dean's nose and dislocates his shoulder (Dean's an adult but he's still John's kid, and it is implied in canon that John did lay hands on Dean in a physically abusive manner). Other than that, the abuse in the rest this fic is mostly just John's usual canon-type emotional manipulation bullshit.


	4. treading water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> like swimming to shore through choppy seas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to stay ahead of schedule on this baby in case I fall behind later (sooo many other deadlines) so this one is early, but it also probably has some typos (to be fixed at a later date). This is the longest chapter so far, too, so I hope you enjoy it :). Chapter five is about halfway done, so it should be up this Thursday (July 14).
> 
> Warnings in the end notes as always.

Sam fights it, like swimming to shore through choppy seas, kicking through the frigid depths of what he truly wants. The horizon is still so far off, and though his hands cut into the cold, he is gaining no distance. His fingers begin to numb. His legs feel strained, weak, lungs heaving as he gasps for air. Wave after wave overtakes him, pushing him deeper from the surface of thought into the dangerous expanse beneath the surface of his self-control. He is left fighting to stay afloat, treading water in the middle of a hurricane that is about to make landfall. He holds out no hope of ever setting foot on dry ground. His breaths become more brine and less oxygen, but he will not allow himself to drown.

* * *

Summer lights up like a firecracker after that- the fuse burns down and the colours explode- Labour day has come and gone and taken the rest of September with it. It's three weeks until Halloween and all that's left of summer break is the phantom taste of gun powder on the roof of Sam's mouth.

He wakes up one morning and no longer notices the tension in his shoulders that comes with carrying the burden of unrequited love. It hurts, but it feels less like an open wound and more like an old muscle injury that flares up every once in a while. Sam has become a regular professional in the sport of not slipping up and revealing his hand. His shitty, pathetic, morally fucked up hand. Luckily, there are other things to focus on at the moment.

His senior year of high school for instance. By some bona fide miracle or incredible fluke, he manages to talk his dad into picking a city, a town, _anywhere_ with a decent high school, and staying there until Sam graduates. Eight months is a lot to bargain for, but somehow Sam clinches the deal.

"Come on, dad," he pleads, purposefully loud. "Wouldn't it be nice to have at least _one_ son be a high school graduate?"

"Fuck you!" Dean hollers playfully from the motel bathroom, and it's the summer of ninety-five all over again; Sam is twelve and _not_ in love with his asshole brother and all is right with the world.

But then the bathroom door opens and the illusion is shattered- Dean emerges from a cloud of steam, almost completely naked. Fluffy white towel. That's it. It's back to the present and Sam has to avert his eyes in a 'dude, gross' kind of way to compensate for the real reason he suddenly feels compelled to study the carpet. Heat rises in his face and he almost says 'not now' out loud. Talking to himself. He really has lost his mind.

"I'll think about it," John says as he heads for the door- it's the research phase of their current case- he's off to the library, which is Sam's favourite place according to Dean. Dean's least favourite place, according to Dean and everyone else. But he's going nonetheless, hurriedly pulling on a t-shirt; it sticks to his shower-steamy skin, under his arms and in the center of his chest. Sam watches how it clings to him until Dean tugs it free and shrugs on his jacket. He walks past Sam on his way out the door, and the smell of him alone nearly has Sam making some ungodly noise that he would kill himself for making in front of another human being.

When the door shuts, Sam rushes to the window and watches them drive off, waits until the Impala disappears and the dust behind it settles, until there's absolutely no chance that either Dean or John forgot anything and are on their way back to get it.

Motel rooms are notorious for their lack of hot water- Dean is notorious for using all of what little there is when he showers. Luckily for Sam, a hot shower is the last thing he needs right now.

He turns the shower as cold as it will go, checks the lock on the bathroom door for the ~~second~~ third time and then sits with his back to it, the ridges of the door digging unevenly into his spine. He sighs, thumps his head back against the door just hard enough to hurt, and closes his eyes.

This isn't something he likes doing. He doesn't like feeling dirty, even if he always showers as soon as it's over. He doesn't like the guilt he feels after, or even worse, the absence of guilt he feels while he's doing it. It's one thing to be 'the new kid' your whole life, but at least he knows he's not the only one to be that kind of freak. He's not sure how many people want to jump their big brother's bones on a weekly, daily, _hourly_ basis. He really, _really_ hates being _that_ kind of freak.

But apparently that isn't enough to stop him from doing what he's about to do. Normally he can go weeks without it, which he supposes is a lifetime by most guys' standards. He wonders how often Dean does it and _wow_ , imagining that really isn't helping him talk his dick out of this. In fact, that's the crux of the problem- he can repress the literal fuck out of himself, ignore every other possible source of arousal, but then Dean does something as normal as walk around in nothing but a towel and Sam loses all control over his baser urges.

The real bitch of it is that it's easier to overcome the guilt, every single time it gets easier- that only makes the guilt he feels afterwards even _worse_.

He sighs again and lets his thoughts off the leash they've been pulling at since the last time he did this. There's a dark room in his mind, at the end of an even darker hallway, filled with all the things Sam knows he shouldn't think about. That's where his thoughts run to now, whining and scratching at the door. Sam resigns himself to damnation and flings the door wide open.

Sam likes to imagine sometimes that Dean is doing it on purpose- if this were a normal relationship, Sam thinks he's correct in assuming that Dean would be a complete tease. But then, even if they weren't related, Sam's only seventeen- he's still jailbait. And they _are_ related, which means that Sam is always gonna be some kind of jailbait on one level or another.

Shoving that thought aside, Sam closes his eyes and sticks to the image of Dean in a towel, watching carefully in his mind's eye as a drop of water snakes its way from the dip of Dean's collarbones, down the center of his chest, its path deviating with the lines of Dean's muscles, a small shining line of wet that ends at the towel, which Dean is still clutching around his waist.

"Heya Sammy," not-Dean says, stepping slowly closer, skin damp and shimmering. Sam bites his lip and gets his own hand inside his jeans, pulling them down just far enough to get his hand on his dick. He wraps his hand around it and squeezes, not hard enough to hurt, but just enough so that he doesn't come right there and then. If he's going to jerk off while thinking of Dean, he might as well get a half decent orgasm out of it.

"You like what you see?" the Dean in Sam's imagination is still walking toward him, but he doesn't drop the towel. He never does. Sam's never seen that part of Dean for real, and so it's the one line he never crosses in his fantasies, even though he knows it makes about as much sense as trying to put out a house fire with a garden hose. Part of him wants to believe that he's reigning it in out of respect- but part of him also thinks that maybe his imagination just couldn't do that part of Dean justice.

Sam strokes himself in a slow, deliberate rhythm, thumbing the head of his dick as it starts to leak precome. He knows he isn't going to last long, and he's alright with that, the sane part of him wanting to get this over with and all. It's difficult to draw it out after a certain point anyway, impossible not to just give up and go faster, to lose the clear mental image of Dean altogether and just focus on what he knows, how Dean smells, the way his skin pinks in the sun or how he bites his bottom lip when he's really focussed on something, how it goes red and shiny and how Sam always, always, always wants to kiss it.

He shoves two fingers in his mouth, maybe not to choke himself so much as to choke off the noises he's trying not to make, the name he's trying not to say. And that's about as freaky as it gets, because as soon as he thinks of something else he could be shoving in his mouth, he's coming with just enough presence of mind to lean forward so as not to make a mess, at least not one he can't clean up and hide from later.

His whole body seizes and shakes as he comes, shoulders jumping in time with his hips while he sucks harder on his fingers, damn near does choke on them, moaning around them, oh so glad he isn't able to form a word because there's only one that would be falling from his lips right now. In his head, he can't stop saying it.

_Dean, Dean, Dean._

The hand on his dick is warm and wet now, the heat of the aftershocks rising and rippling under his skin, spreading over him like steam clouding a mirror. He pulls his fingers from his mouth with a harsh and heavy breath, pressing his hot hands tot eh vinyl floor, trying to clean the condensation away, though he knows he still won't be able to look at himself, even if he does succeed at cleaning the mirror. He knows there's no point, really; he's never going to see a reflection he likes.

* * *

At some point later in the afternoon, Sam hears a key turn in the motel door lock. He is both relieved and terrified, and has been staring at the same page of his book for most of the time since he got out of the shower. His skin is still icy cold from the water, but the chill is added to by the dryness of the cheap air conditioner jammed haphazardly into the room's only window. He cranked it as soon as he got out of the shower, determined to permanently freeze out any last remnants of the heat that still threatens to explode beneath his skin.

The shiver that jolts up his spine when the door opens- that's not from the cold. It's the kind of shiver he would know anywhere. This shiver has a name. This shiver is all Dean, Dean, Dean.

Dean saunters through the door, casually going to town on a round red sucker- he pulls it out of his mouth, only to press it to the flat of his tongue, stained cherry by the candy, and then suck it back into his mouth, lips closed around it, cheeks indented. He doesn't see Sam staring at first, but Sam doesn't pull his eyes away until it's too late.

Dean catches him looking, catches him _gawking_ , and there's a god-awful Mexican standoff moment of realisation that passes between them, like Dean can not only tell that Sam is thinking about Dean sucking his dick, but that he got off to the idea of choking on Dean's dick less than an hour ago. Their eyes meet, and it's like when you lean too far back in a chair, when it goes out from under you,  and you know you're about to go into freefall but also know that there's jack shit you can do about it.

"Don't stare," Dean quips, shoving the sucker into his cheek so he can speak around it. His cheeks are quickly turning the same colour as his tongue was a second ago. "It ain't polite."

And just like that, Sam's secret is out in the open. It's plain as day that Dean didn't know before but damn well knows now, that Sam isn't anywhere near past this _thing_ of his- and that he won't be anytime soon. Sam hates, hates, _hates_ that he's the only one exposed here. Of all the times he's wished he could open Dean up, crack his chest and curl up next to Dean's heart, this time is by far the most violent.

"Don't get comfortable." It's then that John enters the room, speaking to Dean, who's just sat down at the little round table in the corner, his eyes flitting around in the air over Sam's head, almost like he's tracking the movements of one seriously manic mosquito.

"We're going back out," John says as Dean stands. "Sam, get your shoes on."

"What?" Sam is on his feet, book forgotten (as if it wasn't already).

"It's an angry spirit," John explains. "Simple salt and burn. You're coming along."

"But you never let me-" _No Research, No Grave Dig_. That's always been the rule.

"Do you wanna ask questions, or do you wanna be part of this hunt? Get your ass in gear."

"Yes sir." Sam doesn't know why, but he feels like he's only being invited along on this one in the name of being taught a lesson. He just can't quite figure out what that lesson is.

On the way out the door, Sam's hand brushes the back of Dean's, and he catches the look on Dean's face and _God_ , there is so much he needs to learn.

* * *

The lesson comes in a form Sam isn't expecting. It's really less of a lesson and more of a wake-up call, to get his shit together and stop being to goddamn obvious, to quit focussing on something that will only ever get him in more trouble than any fantasy is worth.

"So what's the story?" He asks. They've parked out at the town cemetery, waiting for the sun to set and all life to dissipate before they can get to work. The sun is almost set, stubborn wisps of blood red light leaking up into the deep blue sky above. John has already left the car; he can be seen, barely in the reach of the Impala's headlights, walking the rows of tombstones and looking for the one that belongs to their angry spirit.

Sam is in the backseat, leaning forward to look at the reams of paper spread over the dashboard and across Dean's lap. He's trying his best to play it cool, pretending like his face being this close to Dean's neck isn't the slightest bit weird for him, like he can't smell the leather of Dean's jacket or the spice of his skin or the sugar on his breath.

"Thomas Meyers," Dean replies, apparently ignorant of Sam's agitation. He holds up a scratchy photocopy of what looks like a death certificate. "Born nineteen oh-five, died nineteen sixty-two. Married for thirty-six out of his fifty-seven years. Father of three, murderer of two."

Dean sifts through the papers on the dash, coming up with a few family portraits, one of which it attached to a newspaper article about the death of the two Meyers boys. Sam skim reads, even as Dean keeps speaking.

"Thomas Meyers Junior, born nineteen twenty-seven, and Robert Meyers, born nineteen thirty-two. Thomas Meyers' only two sons, the oldest and the youngest, were murdered in nineteen forty-nine. Now, this being a small town, a rumour started up that Thomas Senior, who was known for his physical forms of discipline and love of the drink, had killed them in a fit of rage for unknown reasons. But there were no witnesses, so it could never be proved. The rumours got to be too much for Thomas's wife Edna, and she left him in 'fifty-one- she just disappeared, took a suitcase and never looked back. Thomas spent the remainder of his days alone on the Meyers farm, just on the other side of the town line- he died in the very same farmhouse where his sons were murdered."

"Then shouldn't his spirit be tied to the house?"

"The house was destroyed. It got left abandoned after Meyers died. The land was sold off to the neighbouring farms in a public auction, and the house itself eventually got burned down by some vandals in the seventies." Dean holds up another story about the fire, and the arrests made in connection to it. "If his soul _was_ in the house, it would have been laid to rest twenty-something years ago."

"So he killed his sons. And now he's coming back once every twenty-ish years to kill other pairs of brothers," Dean explains, showing Sam much newer looking articles from different newspapers in the county, detailing the gruesome killings of three different pairs of brothers, in nineteen sixty-six, eighty-three, and last month. Dean stays quiet while Sam reads about how each set of brothers were found with their throats cut, the bodies moved so that they lay facing each other, which the police thought might be the signature of a serial killer.

Sam doesn't see that there's more to tell, but Dean just isn't telling it. "But why? I mean, why does he keep coming back?"

"I dunno, maybe he was just exceptionally fucked up in life, and now he's even worse in death."

"Do we know why he killed his own sons in the first place?" Sam asks, but he's watching John, way out on the far side of the cemetery, the line of his shoulders barely visible in the dying light as he stoops to read one of the tombstones. "It had to have been something pretty bad, otherwise his spirit wouldn't keep re-enacting it, right?"

Dean is tapping his foot to some silent beat, a clear sign that he's fidgety and impatient and just wants this to be over. "Uh, no. No. We don't know why. But does really it matter? He's clearly the guy we're looking for."

Sam's eyes fall from across the cemetery and back into the car, and it's then that he notices the way Dean's foot is tapping, and how he's holding his breath now, a clear sign of-

"Bullshit. You obviously know, Dean. So tell me."

Dean sighs quietly, mostly to himself, Sam thinks, in resignation rather than in frustration.

"The Meyers had a daughter, Ruthie, born in nineteen twenty-eight. Turns out she's still alive. She's a widow now, lives with her daughter and son-in-law and five grandkids on a farm in the next county over. Dad found her and called her, then went to see her yesterday. He gave her some bullshit excuse about being a writer, I think. She told him everything."

Dean pulls John's tape recorder from the glove box, tosses it to Sam and looks back out the window. Sam looks at the back of his head for a minute and then presses play.

 _I know why you're here._ The voice is that of a woman, quiet and worn around the edges, creased, like an old photograph that's been folded and kept in a wallet for years upon years upon years. _You're here about Tom and Robbie._

 _I understand that you were the one to discover them, after they'd been killed_. That's John's voice, soft and sympathetic and completely alien in its tone.

 _Yes, I was_.

 _Can you tell me how it happened?_ John asks.

 _It was the week of my birthday_ , starts Ruthie, slightly off-topic in the way that older people often are. _I had been out, with Henry. It was the day he proposed to me. I wasn't surprised. We had talked about getting engaged, and he knew I wanted a ring for my birthday, to be married at twenty-one, just like my mother._

_I came straight home after Henry proposed- it was dinner time, and Dad never liked us to be late, no matter the excuse. And I was excited to show everyone the ring. But when I came in the house, it was empty. I called out for my parents, my brothers, but no one answered. Now, the house wasn't that big, so I know they would have heard me. That was when I got this sick sense, like something wasn't quite right. It might have been chore time, but I at least expected my mother to be in the kitchen, cooking for when the boys got done with milking. But I couldn't find her. So I went upstairs, just to see if perhaps she had decided to lie down and drifted off._

_That was when I saw the blood. There were only a few drips of it, little circles of red in a group on the floorboards, just outside Tom and Robbie's room. I felt sick to my stomach then, afraid, even though I hadn't seen them yet, hadn't opened the door. Somehow though, I knew where that blood was from._

_When I opened the door, it was the first thing I saw. It was like, even though I didn't know what I would find, I knew exactly where to look to find it._

_They were both laying on Tom's bed- it was bigger than Robbie's, always had been. They had their arms around each other, eyes closed, like they'd just been sleeping. But their throats- I didn't know if they'd been stabbed or what, all I knew was that they were covered, covered in blood. It was soaked into their shirts and into the mattress, in a big dark pool between them and around them and dripping off onto the floor and I... I just left the room after that. Left the house, in fact, and never went back in. I went to the neighbours' house and called the police and moved in with Henry's parents and married Henry a month later._

_Where were your parents when all of this was happening?_

_In the barn. At least, that's what they told me. And the police. And anyone who would listen. Mom said she went down to the barn to talk to Dad about something and didn't come back until she heard the police car coming up the lane. And Dad was with her the whole time. That's what she told me._

_What do you think really happened?_

_I'm sure you've heard the rumours. That my father went insane and slit my brothers' throats. I know what people say. What they don't say is that my father went insane long before he slit my brothers' throats. He was always a mean old man, always drunk, always driving my mother to tears and forcing us children to live in fear of what he might do. I loved my brothers- Tom was only a year older than I, but he was more of a father than my father ever was. I was orphaned on that day._

_Do you know why he did it? Why he killed them?_

_Rumours are the bread and butter of small towns, you know. Rumours and stories. And murder wasn't the first story they told about my family._

_What do you mean by that?_

There's a long bit of silence on the recording. No voices, just low static and the ticking of a clock, old music playing somewhere in the background.

_Tom and Robbie were always close. There weren't a lot of other boys their ages , leastways none that lived near enough to us. Even though there was four years between them, they were always attached at the hip, all the way through their lives. Tom was smart- he could have gone to college, or even found work in the city, young and strong as he was. But even when things were the worst for us, when there was hardly food enough for five, he wouldn't leave, not if it meant going somewhere without Robbie. The only time Tom ever allowed talk of leaving was when Robbie said he wanted to go, as soon as he was old enough. They were always close._

_There was something about it that made people uncomfortable, I think. Like brothers were supposed to work together and do little else, like bickering and teasing were what should happen, and affection was for girls. People began to get unseemly ideas about the two of them, you understand. The year before they died, one of the other young men in town said he saw them holding hands, out back of the post office, and that Robbie even kissed Tom's cheek, and then on the mouth. Now, I don't know if that was true, and I never saw them do anything of the sort-  in our house, we never spoke about the rumours. My mother always ignored the issue, turned a blind eye to the truth, and I did the same. I wonder sometimes what I might have seen if I'd let myself look. I didn't really see what was going on until it was too late... until I found them dead in each other's arms._

Sam can feel the blood actively rushing from his face, from his hands and feet, numbing every part of his body even as his heart burns, loud and pounding in his chest. The tape recorder clicks as the recording ends, and he has to swallow against his sudden urge to vomit.

"What," he whispers, "the fuck."

"You wanted to know." Dean shrugs, but his shoulders are tight. He's staring straight ahead, at the place where the dash meets the windshield, at a photograph of Tom and Robbie, Tom's arm slung over Robbie's shoulder. Robbie is looking up at Tom like Tom is the sun, with a smile so wide and adoring that he has to squint. Sam wonders how they found that picture, when it was taken, who took it, and if John would kill him and Dean if he thought they were fucking.

"Dean-"

Someone slams the roof of the Impala, and both Dean and Sam nearly piss themselves. Dean makes an aborted noise of panic while Sam hits his head off the ceiling. The terror ebbs when they realise that it's just John, who has apparently located the final resting place of the late Thomas Meyers.

* * *

It turns out that when John told Sam to come along, he did it to save himself the trouble of actually having to be involved in digging up the grave. There's a joke about old age and a bad back somewhere in there, but neither Sam nor Dean is dumb enough to make it. They both laugh silently to themselves while John shows them where the grave is, hands them shovels and goes back to the car to 'keep an eye out'.

They're lucky they got here when they did- another couple weeks and the ground would have started to freeze. It's a tough enough dig as is- there are a lot of rocks in this dirt,  roots of a nearby tree that have to be hacked through before they can go any deeper. Sam thought he knew every profanity in the English language by now, but gave-digging with Dean always teaches him a few new ones, reminds him to be creative if nothing else.

Other than Dean's occasional poetic obscenities and the constant huff of their hard-working breaths, it's a completely silent job. They fall into a rhythm like they always have, and despite the eerie circumstances of this hunt and all that's going on (or _not_ going on) between them, it's only an hour or so before Sam is mostly lulled back into thinking that there's a chance of things going back to some semblance of the Winchester brand Normal that he knows and (only sometimes) loves.

His shovel is the one to hit the coffin- it cracks against the wood, splintering easily into the lid of the poor man's pine box that Thomas Meyers was buried in. Dean hoists himself out of the grave first and then gives Sam a hand up, both of them stumbling a little when Sam finally gets up on his feet. He nearly trips and falls right against Dean's chest, but Dean is quick to hold him at arm's length, gripping Sam's elbow until it hurts. They end up with their eyes locked, knees touching, faces inches apart as they try to remember why being this close is a bad idea. Sam is used to wanting and not being wanted back- he knows what it looks like. Sam thinks that Dean looks terrified, a little disgusted maybe, no doubt thinking about the Meyers brothers and their doomed illegal love affair.

"You salt, I'll burn," Dean grunts, and finally lets go of Sam's elbow. Sam touches it immediately, hopes it'll bruise, thinks again about cracking Dean's chest, much less violent and much more metaphorical than it was before.

Sam pours an extra generous helping of rock salt into the open grave, especially eager for this bastard to be put to rest. He steps back, tosses the salt tin back towards the shovels as Dean steps up with the kerosene and a book of matches. He pours the kerosene (heavy handed, just as Sam had been with the salt), tears the matchbook open, strikes the whole thing until it lights, arches his arm to drop them and-

Something invisible throws Dean to the ground. Faster than Sam can react, that same thing comes at him, a whisper of cold and a force enough to take him off his feet as well. He lands hard on his back, head knocking hard off the ground and sending his head spinning. He rolls onto his side, the whole world tilting in a foggy sort of slow motion, ears ringing along with every alarm in his brain screaming _help Dean, help Dean, help Dean_.

His vision clears just in time to see Dean, spread eagle on his back not three feet away, pinned by the apparition of Thomas Meyers. He looks a lot more solid than most spirits Sam's seen in his lifetime, almost opaque, skin grey and sunken and grotesque, more like a corpse than a ghost. His eyes are clouded over like white marbles, and his clothes look just about as old as he is, worn and torn and faded and frayed. The most frightening thing is the knife in his hand, poised over Dean's throat, ready to strike even as Dean struggles, shaking his head and thrashing his legs.

"Dean!" The scream rips itself from Sam's throat, burning the roof of his mouth on the way out as he clamours to his knees.

Both Dean and Meyers look over at Sam, and both of them move within seconds of each other. Meyers lifts off of Dean's chest and comes after Sam, murderous rage in his glassy stare, cracked lips twisted into a hellish snarl. Sam feels the fear of all the boys this ghost has ever killed, every younger brother about to die for no good reason, of Robbie Meyers, who at least got to die in his brother's arm.

Sam does what comes naturally, then- he looks for Dean.

Something knocks Sam back down again, arms wrapped around him, a very living body covering his. He looks up at Dean just in time for Dean to touch slide his hand to the back of Sam's head and pull Sam's face against his chest, kneeling over him, shielding him from Meyers' wrath.

An ear-piercing bang echoes through the cemetery, then another. Sam peeks over Dean's shoulder to see John holding up his sawed-off, sending a hail of salt pellets into Meyer's chest. Meyers growls, his voice a horrible guttural slur of a thing, before he vanishes in a puff of smoke. John quickly races to the edge of the grave, kicking the still smouldering matches into it. Meyers’ bones ignite in a shooting crackle of flame, but Sam has stopped paying attention by that point.

Dean's face is pressed into his neck, his panicked breaths bursting repeatedly against Sam's throat. He feels Dean's mouth brush across his skin, so fast and light that he's sure it's unintentional, although Sam shivers nonetheless.

"Dean," he whispers, gently pushing at Dean's side with the heel of his hand. "Dean, it's over. I'm okay. Get offa me."

"Sorry." Sam can't see Dean's face, but he can hear Dean's breath, a long inhale that sounds sort of like Dean's holding back tears. No way of knowing for sure- Dean lifts his head, turning his face away from Sam and getting up without another word.

"What the hell was that?" John asks, his eyes going like a metronome between Sam and Dean's faces.

"Just another day at the office," Dean mutters. Sam looks at John and realises that's not what John was asking.

* * *

The next day, at a rest stop somewhere well into Oregon, John spreads a map of the continental US out on the hood of the Impala and draws a big, red, lopsided circle around everything from Delaware down to Georgia and back up to South Dakota and tells Sam to pick one. Any city in any of those states, whichever one he chooses; they'll go there and set up shop of some kind- John will keep hunting, Dean too most likely- and Sam will go to school.

Sam doesn't know what kind of sad commentary on his life that a high school education is the nicest thing his dad's ever allowed him to have. He looks across the car at Dean, sees the pride in his eyes, shining like the sun, and decides that it doesn't matter. He closes his eyes and lets his finger fall- it comes down in Virginia, right about halfway between Roanoke and Lynchburg.

"Bedford." Dean frowns. "You couldn'ta picked somewhere bigger?"

"Bedford," Sam says, setting his shoulders and his eyes straight ahead. He doesn't care where they go- he's just been handed his ticket out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam masturbates in this chapter, and since he's still seventeen, that's technically underage sexual content. There's also mentions of violence and a fight scene with a dead guy, but that's just par for the course.


	5. full tilt vertigo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he could leave right now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this'd probably be up on the 13th, but stuff happened. This chapter is actually right on schedule, in the (original) grand scheme of things. This is the most chapters in a WIP that I've actually been on schedule for so, hey, personal record :)
> 
> This fic now has [Cover Art](http://bvcki.tumblr.com/post/147375481529/let-not-man-put-asunder-by-lordisitmine-he)! We are a classy-ass operation! (I did the cover art as well as inserted it at the beginning of chapter one btw). Also this is my [Supernatural sideblog on Tumblr](http://www.alreadycursed.tumblr.com), have a looksie if you'd like! Also, music is really integral to my writing process in general, so I've made a playlist on 8tracks for this fic which you can listen to [here](http://8tracks.com/lady-day/let-not-man-put-asunder)!

Dean fights it, like trying to stay conscious through a series of blows to the head. Over and over, fighting his way back to clarity, clinging to the hilt of reason and attempting to slash through the underbrush of his own desires. He does this repeatedly, only to lose his grip when another hit sends his brain rolling around inside his head, thoughts clattering through his skull like loose change. He can taste copper under his tongue and he knows his teeth must be broken and red by now. He constantly feels like he's taking a beating from the blunt instruments of everything he can't have. But no matter how skewed his moral compass becomes, he will not lose his way in this.

* * *

By Thanksgiving, Dean's nerves are seriously starting to fray- he's carrying all the tension between him and Sam in his shoulders, the pain of it bone-deep and putting a real strain on his muscles. All in all, he feels rather like an old building, with flickering lights and a roof that has already collapsed in certain places, holey walls and a skeleton that's being eaten through by termites. There might as well be bugs under his skin, for the nagging itch that he can't scratch, the persistent buzz beneath the surface whenever he looks at Sam for too long, or when Sam says something smart and Dean has to needle him about it, all the while bursting with pride over his genius kid brother.

Sam has grown over the summer (he's been growing every summer since he was fifteen, will he ever stop) and his t-shirts are getting too short for the length of his torso; when he stretches, sluggishly and sleepily in the back seat, his shirt will slide easily up his stomach, and Dean lives just to catch a glimpse of the skin there, unmarred by sun or by scars or by any other hints of the life. He lives to see that Sam's boyishness is falling by the wayside, a chrysalis that has begun to crack, leaving behind filled-out shoulders and a narrow waist, his body harder now where it used to be soft. Dean tries not to think about this too much- it's beginning to take a real effort to stay sane, to keep making himself see Sam as something he shouldn't, can't, doesn't want.

Of course, things come to a head while they're in the middle of a hunt, which couldn't have been worse timing on the part of the universe. When  _doesn't_ the universe have bad timing? Seriously, Dean's beginning to feel like the whole narrative of his life is just one poorly told cosmic joke, and if he has to listen to one more second of it, he might just go ape-shit crazy (if he hasn't already).

It's less than a month until Christmas, and they're holed up in a motel somewhere in butt-fuck West Virginia. Okay, so Buckhannon isn't exactly butt-fuck (though they do _sound_ sort of similar), but it's at least getting close to West Virginia's ass end of nowhere. Everywhere feels like the ass end of nowhere to Dean these days. The isolation of their life has never really bothered him before, at least not since he was a teenager, but it's getting to him now, especially since the beds in this motel are smaller than the ones Dean's used to, and sleeping next to Sam has never been more of a torture.

This torture is made marginally bearable by the fact that Sam is being particularly bitchy about this hunt- he didn't want to come, wanted to stay at their place back in Bedford and study, but John said he'd be damned if he left Sam alone, even if he was only driving four hours away for a two-day hunt. Sam (who's developed quite a resistance to John's authority but is still too scared and scrawny to blatantly fight back) simply gives John and Dean the silent treatment all the way there, refusing to leave the motel except for food.

Dean thinks that Sam probably knows that this is exactly what John wants, to have Sam safe and out of the (his) way, so he doesn't get hurt (or fuck anything up). But Sam still makes a point of staging the sit-in, and of ignoring the two of them as much as possible. It's incredibly childish. Dean couldn't be more thankful. It'll give him a chance to focus on this case; maybe, if his luck changes, he'll be the one who gets to kill this thing.

They don't know what the thing is yet, but seven murders in three weeks is definitely unusual when the town doesn't even have six thousand people in it. Not to mention that all the bodies have been found with their necks snaps, stripped naked (but without signs of sexual assault) in places they have no reason to be, blocks away from their homes or even near the abandoned mine shafts in the foothills outside of town. The clincher is that what drew John's attention in the first place- reports of the victims being seen alive at a time when the coroner later proved they were dead.

One victim, the pastor at the local Presbyterian church, gave a sermon on the Sunday before- his body was found the next day, and the autopsy came back saying he'd been dead for three days at least. So, no way he could have been in church on Sunday. Another story (overheard by Dean in a coffee shop) is of a woman who was interrupted from sex with her boyfriend when police called to tell her they'd found her boyfriend's body four streets over.

"I thought it might have been some sort of spiritual energy," John says when he and Dean get back to the motel. They've been in Buckhannon for three days thus far, and today was taken up by a trip to the Upshur County Courthouse, looking for any historically strange deaths or other events. They didn't find a single thing other than the usual amount of suspected witchcraft that comes with any Appalachian town that's more than a hundred years old. John had ruled out a witch pretty quick- none of the victims were connected, and there didn't seem to be a clear motive. Witches are rarely so random.

"If it's not a spirit, then what is it?" Sam wonders. It's the first thing he's said to either of them in days. That's not what Dean notices. All he sees is the way Sam is laying, sprawled out on his back across he and Dean's bed- his legs are open, one knee bent, socked heel dug into the mattress. He throws the book he was reading aside and lets his arms fall above his head- his shirt pulls up, skin white as anything in the wishy-washy motel room light. That's when Dean turns away.

"Ask a stupid question, Sammy," he half-mumbles, loud enough for Sam to hear. He can feel Sam glaring at the back of his head, but it only serves to make his spine tingle, a static electric shock without the physical contact point.

"If it's not a witch and it's not a spirit, there's only one thing it _can_ be," John explains, paying no mind to the obvious something that's going on between his sons (Dean wonders sometimes if he's noticed and just isn't saying anything). "It's gotta be a shifter." Makes sense. It jumps someone, steals their skin, their clothes, their thoughts, then snaps their neck and walks a mile in their shoes until the body gets found and identified.

"A shifter?" Sam is quick to sit up, leaning on his elbows. " _Cool_."

Dean looks over his shoulder just in time to see Sam stand, rolling his shoulders and tipping his head back to work out the kinks in his neck, the long lean line of his throat shifting around his Adam's apple as he swallows. Dean hastily looks away again.

"I thought you were sitting this one out, Sammy." John is already going through the bag of weapons he pulled from the car. Dean unconsciously frowns at John's use of the nickname. It's no secret how Sam feels about being called _Sammy_ , but Dean likes to think that it's not as bad when _he_ does it. When _John_ does it, everything else in the sentence automatically rises to unnecessary levels of condescending.

Dean isn't looking at Sam, so he doesn't see Sam's shoulders sink a little, or how he takes a small step back, knocked off-kilter by John's harshness. Dean doesn't catch the sour look on Sam's face a minute or two later. You'd think he'd be used to it by now. Dean certainly is.

John determines that the best course of action is to scout out Frank's, a local bar that was frequented by not one, not two, but three of the victims. It's a sparse lead at best, and it certainly doesn't explain how all seven of the victims were chosen, but it's the only connection they've found so far, other than the fact that all of the victims went to the same high school (not all at the same time), but there _is_ only one high school in Buckhannon proper.

Dean's sure that if they dug deeper, they'd find that some of the victims are related, or that they're connected in some other way. The curse of small town living- there's not a lot you can do or say that someone else hasn't been doing or saying for the last fifty years. A bar seems like a good place to choose victims (serial killer and monster logic 101), so Frank's it is.

Only, John doesn't want Dean to come along, on the (more on than off) chance that the shifter doesn't show up, and John gets too drunk to drive the Impala back to the motel. Dean could easily point out that John could just choose not to get that drunk (he can't hunt drunk anymore than he can drive drunk) but then remembers how long it took to get his wind back the last time he said anything about John's drinking. He bites his tongue and puts a hand to his chest, where he'd had a bruise for a week. Then he grabs the keys from the table and follows John out of the motel.

The sun is just beginning to set, the ragged edge of the horizon cutting into the waning light like a dull knife, casting uneven shadows across the valley. Dean has never been one to stop and appreciate something so commonplace as the rotation of the earth, but he does now, digging his boots into the gravel and closing his eyes, wondering how the world can be hurtling through space without giving anyone full tilt vertigo. He doesn't let himself dwell on it for too long, though, because then he's going to start imagining Sam talking about science, and astronomy, and Dean's imagination where Sam is concerned never does anyone any good.

Dean drops John off at the bar and arrives back at the motel in less than fifteen minutes. He pulls into the parking spot in front of their motel room, turns the car off and then just sits there, unwittingly still, looking into the room through the window.

Sam is lying on his stomach, taking up the whole length of one of the beds, head propped up in his hands, feet kicking against the cheap veneer headboard. He's watching something on TV, an Indiana Jones re-run, it looks like. _Temple of Doom_ . Dean makes a face and decides to go inside and change the channel, remind Sam to have some Goddamn _taste_ for once in his life. But he doesn't move- he can't quite make himself do it. He tries a couple more times, nearly to the point of verbally ordering himself out of the car, but it's like he's put down roots, anchored himself into the upholstery, caught in the smell of the worn but un-cracked leather. It's the fabric of his childhood, the backdrop of his life. Past, present, future.

He could leave right now. He has the Impala, the Impala has a full tank of gas; Dean doesn't need more than what he already has- the clothes on his back and the fake credit cards in his wallet. If he goes now, he could be two counties gone before John or Sam even realises it. He could hit all the tourists stops on that All-American bucket list that he doesn't even have. He could make it up as he goes along.

His foot, immobile until now, jumps at the idea, pressing to the gas pedal like that's the only thing it's good for.

Inside the motel, Sam laughs (presumably at how bad the movie is)- Dean can't hear it from this far away, but the lack of sound is silhouetted by the shake of Sam's shoulders, the bounce of his hair (which he hasn’t cut in months), how it falls in his eyes with every dip of his head. The smile that he's smiling is his rarest and best smile, the one he smiles when he thinks no one is looking, the one that isn't for anyone but himself. This smile is brighter than the summer sun, hurt your eyes if you stare- hotter than fresh asphalt, singe our fingertips if you touch it- warmer than fresh coffee, melt your mouth if you try to taste it.

It's that smile that makes Dean want to turn tail and not look back- it's that smile that keeps him right where he is, stuck right in the bittersweet-spot between wanting and having, stuck in its orbit. It's this smile that Dean lives for, more often than not- but it _burns_.

Dean starts the car again and peels out of the parking lot. He's not about to defect from the Winchester Nation (not now, not tonight). But he'll be damned and damned again if he has to spend the next three to five hours alone in a room with nothing but Sam and a couple of beds. Recovering addicts don't lock themselves in rooms with a bag of smack and a fresh syringe. Dean likes to think that he's recovering. So as much as he knows that tempting fate is kind of his _Thing_ , he's not gonna take any chances with this one.

He ends up in a bar- not Frank's,- he picks one on the other side of town, so there's no way John will ever know about it. The bar Dean picks is called the Coal Mine, a nod to the history and industry of Buckhannon. He couldn't give less of a shit what the bar is called- he really only has two criteria- that the place serves alcohol and that no one here is related to him.

The bar is alright, as far as bars go. It's seedy enough to be a dive, but definitely the semi-class kind of dive, disorderly without being dirty, the kind of customers that are on a first name basis with the staff, of which there appear to be only two, one who tends bar and one who does everything else- waits tables, sweeps floors, chews piece after piece of gum while she waits tables and sweeps floors. Classic.

Everything in the place is wood panelled and worn, homey even (especially when you've lived your whole life on the road). A couple of the light bulbs are out, casting pockets of shadows here and there while everything else is just lit a dusty sort of yellow. He takes a seat in the farthest and most empty corner, orders a straight shot of the cheapest variety and taps his foot to whatever one-hit wonder it is that he can hear from some old speaker on the other side of the room.

He lets his eyes drift while he waits, lifting and falling over the bar's unfamiliar patrons, its unfamiliar layout, subconsciously looking for threats and exits- and then kicks himself mentally, because he's not hunting, not tonight. These people are all travellers in one way or another, like he is, all taking a break from something whether they realise it or not. There are nine people here in total- Dean himself, the bartender, the waitress, a young couple in the booth next to Dean's table (he wonders where they got their fake IDs, or if twenty-one year olds are just looking younger these days). There are three guys at the bar, all hefty and loud and definitely local- and a woman, probably mid-twenties, attractive, though Dean makes it a point not to notice.

Dean didn't come here looking for a hook-up. He really didn't. He came here for a stiff drink (or three)- so he could have just one night off from the 24/7 job of wanting Sam . And even though he is off-duty, so to speak, he isn't here for anything but the booze. Really.

But, if he was looking, it'd definitely be for a woman. First, because this is Small Town Virginia- not a setting that's very conducive to picking up dudes. And second- and this is if he _was_ looking, which he _isn't_ \- he'd want to make sure that the person in question had as little in common with Sam as humanly possible.

So when that attractive blonde woman at the bar starts eyeing him, obviously sizing him up, he thinks, _well why the fuck not?_

He meets her eyes (icy blue, nothing like Sam's) and tilts his chin, silently inviting her over to his table. She slides carefully from her seat, which is high enough so that her feet don't quite reach the floor (short legs, nothing like Sam's). She moves with all the catlike grace of experienced seduction; the low light makes her bleached out hair glow almost white, and it's down to her hips, and straight as a pin (nothing like Sam's- soft, wavy, just the right length to get your fingers in and _pull_ ). She reaches Dean's table just as he shoves that thought aside- she's even prettier up close, so pretty it seems almost fake, but Dean's not really paying attention.

"Miriam," she says, her eyelids dropping so that her gaze becomes unmistakably predatory. Dean's okay with predatory. He hates that the next thing he thinks after that is how _not_ predatory Sam is.

"Dean," he answers, leans back in his seat, opens his legs as he slides his hips forward, throws one arm over the chair back- all those carefully casual movements he makes when he wants to get into some stranger's pants. Or miniskirt, as the case may be.

"Dean," she parrots, reaching out for the other chair at Dean's table, like she means to sit down. "Buy me a drink?"

"I can do that."

She smiles (that smile is for Dean- it's sharp around the edges and it doesn't _burn_ , it doesn't even _glow_ ) and pauses for a second, doesn't sit down even though Dean expects her to. She looks him up and down again instead, and Dean is finally paying enough attention to see where this is going.

"On second thought." Miriam steps closer, puts a hand on the tabletop and leans in close (she smells like flowers, overpowering, like she's trying to cover up another smell. Sam always smells like the Impala, or like motel soap, or pretty much whatever Dean smells like. It drives him wild, the way Sam smells- just like home, like solid ground under his feet, like the only things Dean knows for certain).

"Do you wanna just get out of here?" Miriam asks at the way Dean's eyes have focussed in on her, the way they've gone a little glassy with want, the way he swallows, hard, though she doesn't know he's swallowing his want for someone else.

"Yeah." Dean really, really does.

* * *

‘Out of here’ apparently means the parking lot behind the building, up against the red brick wall that’s been tagged by some teenager with vague artistic aspirations. ‘Out of here’ means Miriam’s mouth on his, the bitter taste of her blood-red lipstick, the hurried half-kiss she gives him as she slides her lips to the edge of his jaw, down the side of his neck, her small, fast hands already working on his belt. Dean is definitely into it- he’s already half-hard, but when Miriam opens his jeans and sinks to her knees, that pretty much seals the deal.

“This okay?” She asks, her eyes never leaving his, a coy smirk pushing dimples into her cheeks. There’s no question as to who those dimples remind Dean of.

“Yeah,” he breathes raggedly, chokes on the end of the word when Miriam actually puts her mouth on his dick. Dean has to bite his bottom lip nearly bloody to keep back the sounds he wants to make, because he's not _that_ exhibotionist and there could be people around to hear.

 _Don't close your eyes_ , he tells himself. He’s never had to do that before, never been in danger of forgetting who's sucking his dick, or whose hand he gets off by (even when it's his own).

Miriam hums as she bobs her head, then outright moans, and _fuck_ it's been a long time, because Dean never thought that this alone could get him off so fast. She does it again and her rhythm falters a little Dean realises, through the narrow vision he gets when he's about to come, that she must have her own hand up her skirt. And that just about does it.

“Shit,” he groans, “ _fuck_ , I’m gonna-”

And he does, and he is, coming quick and hard in Miriam’s mouth. She lets him, or she wants him to, opening her mouth wider to account for the sporadic thrusts of his hips.

That’s when Dean blanks, loses all self control, forgets himself and lets his head fall back, eyes slip closed and mouth fly open.

“Fuck, oh fuck, _Sam_.”

Like most of the other stupid things Dean’s ever said, this one just sort of. Comes out. Rolls off his tongue, like your brother’s name is obviously supposed to right after you've been blown.

Miriam pulls away, even as Dean freezes, all the blood he has in him rushing (from his dick, among other places) right to his face, turning him all shades of red as he struggles to find an explanation that makes any of this even remotely okay.

“ _Wow_.” Miriam is on her feet right quick, wiping her mouth clean with the cuff of her jacket sleeve. “I know that wasn't the classiest thing, what we just did, but saying another girl’s name is about as low as it gets.”

Dean shrugs slightly, his presence of mind returning enough for him to think of a snappy retort while he puts his dick away and zips his jeans back up.

“I guess you’re right, but who says it was another _chick’s_ name?”

It’s snappy alright, if not somewhat ill-advised.

“ _Asshole_.” The back of Miriam’s hand collides with the side of Dean’s face in short order; the ring she’s wearing bites into his cheekbone, draws blood up to the surface and through broken skin and yeah. He might have deserved that. If only the sense could be smacked back into him that easily.

That’s right about when his phone rings. He answers it, watching as Miriam scowls, flips him off and storms away.

“Yeah?” He sounds just a little hoarse and a little slurred and prays that it goes unnoticed.

“Dean.” It’s John’s voice, also a little hoarse and a little slurred.

“Dad?” Dean’s already going through his pockets for the car keys. “What’s going on?”

“I need you to come get me, now.” In the background, Dean can hear John moving through a crowd and coming out into the much quieter street. “They’ve found another body. Out by the abandoned mining camp on the other side of town.”

“Oh, okay I’ll-” Dean’s hand goes into his last pocket and, like all the others, it’s completely empty. “Shit.”

“ _What_.” John sounds like he’s narrowing his eyes. “What happened.”

“Nothing, I’m-” completely fucked. “I’m on my way.”

Dean hangs up the phone and swears, a long tirade of curses, that echo across the back alley and die into the trees beyond it.

He races around to the parking lot just in time to hear the Impala’s engine start up.

“No. No, no no-”

Miriam is behind the wheel, and she drives right for him. He dives out of the way, going down on his shoulder, the gravel of the parking lot biting into his skin even through his clothes.

“This must really suck for you.” Miriam has stopped, and is leaning out the driver’s side window, her predatory smile gone full-on monstrous. “Oh well. Bee seein’ you, Winchester.”

Her eyes go wide and wild and _white_ , glinting like silver coins in the glow of the Impala’s headlights. And just like that, she speeds away.

“Completely fucked,” Dean says to himself, still laid flat out on the ground.

* * *

 

He ends up having to jack an old Tempo from an empty lot two streets over, which is, despite what just happened tonight, possibly the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to him. Not only because he let the Impala, John’s literal pride and joy, get stolen, but because now Dean has to trundle around town in a _Ford_ , one of the worst Fords to ever, no less. It whines and rumbles and threatens to break down and die no less than three times before he makes it back over to Frank’s. John is standing on the curb, waiting for him. Dean braces himself for John’s wrath.

“Dean,” John says calmly (the kind of calm that precedes a shitstorm) when he sees what Dean is driving. “What the-”

“It’s a long story. Short version- after I got off the phone with you, the shifter jumped me, took my keys and the car, nearly turned me into roadkill.” It’s mostly accurate, even if the order of events is a bit skewed. “Look. I get that you’re pissed. But this thing- it called me _Winchester_. It knows who we are, it knows what we do, and that means Sam could really be in trouble.”

John gets in the car and doesn’t say another word. The calm before the storm.

* * *

Turns out, Sam is in more trouble than Dean thought.

“He’s gone,” John says, coming out of the motel alone. Dean could have guessed- the door was hanging wide open when they got here; it happened so fast that the shifter hadn’t even closed the door behind them. Dean wonders who it looked like, when Sam opened the door for it. It isn’t hard to guess.

“There wasn’t a struggle.” John gets back into the Tempo and shuts the door. That alone makes Dean flinch, with how frayed his nerves are now that he knows for sure who has Sam but doesn’t know where they took him. “The shifter must have made itself look-”

“Don’t say it.” Dean puts the car in drive, and it coughs, and Dean bangs on the dashboard until his hands go numb and the car sounds normal again.

“It must have gone back to the mining camp. That’s the only place where multiple bodies have been found.” John is tactfully and strategically ignoring Dean’s outburst. “There’s still a warehouse, condemned but never torn down- the shifter probably lives there.”

Dean’s already driving.

* * *

 They drive into the camp by way of the back service road, so as to avoid the crime scene John was talking about earlier; Dean can see it, glowing on the far-off hill, with the floodlights and police cars and a coroner’s van. He watches them load the bodybag and bets that there’s a girl named Miriam inside it. He has to swallow back vomit.

“There it is.” John points to the warehouse, a dirty grey box of a thing that looms ahead of them, the mountains big and black just beyond it. Dean drives around it for a minute, looking for the first door he can find that isn’t still chained up.

“Look.” John is pointing now, to a set of big bay doors, dented and hanging wide open. The Impala is just outside, and Dean should be relieved, but he won’t start breathing again until he finds Sam alive and tears that shifter into tiny little bite-sized pieces.

The keys are still in the Impala. John pops the trunk and quickly goes through it, confirming what he already thought.

“It took the silver bullets. The guns are gone too.”

Dean doesn’t even have it in him to quip that well, at least the shifter did them the courtesy of leaving their flashlights behind.

John doesn’t seemed phased, though. He quickly reaches behind himself and pulls not one, but two pistols out of his waistband. Hands one to Dean, and then drops to pull a silver knife out of the sheath he keeps in his boot. He gives that to Dean too. Dean’s always been better with knives than John; he knows everything John taught him and _then_ some.

“One shot to the heart will kill it stone dead. This gun only has the one clip, so don’t miss.”

“Oh, believe me,” Dean whispers, turning on his heels and heading for the darkness of the warehouse. “I don’t plan to.”

* * *

 John and Dean split up once they get into the warehouse, John going left and Dean going right. They agree to sweep the perimeter and meet up on the other side before they head deeper inside. Dean waits for a second, watching John’s flashlight beam light up the high walls before he too presses further into the darkness that clings to everything in this place.

Dean keeps his back to the wall, carefully shining his flashlight in and around every stack of crates, every broken down mining vehicle and apparatus that has been left here to rot. The only sound to hear is his breath, and he focuses on it, keeping it steady and slow and quiet, waiting for the shifter to jump out at him like these things tend to do.

He makes it to the far corner before anything really happens. He can no longer tell where John is, the large and cluttered chasm of the warehouse floor having opened up between them. The junk in here has begun to resemble figures, stretching and collapsing and lying around in Dean’s peripheral vision. He tries to focus, tries to stop seeing Sam everywhere he looks.

“Dean!”

He turns at the sound of his name being called, the sound of Sam’s voice, reaching to him from the inky blackness further into the warehouse, past a huge pile of broken skids.

“Sam?” It doesn’t occur to him that this could be a trap; or rather, it’s the first thing that occurs to him, but the second thing is _Sam, Sam, Sam,_ and Sam trumps everything. He steps around the skids and lifts his flashlight and there he is. His forehead is bruised, his lip a little swollen- he’s dusty and dirty and a little dinged up but thank _Jesus_ , he’s all in one piece.

“ _Sam._ ”

“Dean, thank God, I-” Sam stops when Dean aims the gun squarely at Sam’s chest. “Dean, come on. It’s me, man. Put the gun down.”

“I don’t think so.” Dean lowers the flashlight, setting it on the floor so that it casts a radiant beam across both of them. He takes the silver knife out, flips it in his hand. “This is a shifter we’re dealing with, Sammy. You know the drill.”

“Yeah, right.” Sam lowers his hands and steps forward. “Of course.”

And that’s when Dean knows.

The gun goes off as the shifter lunges at him, clearly intent on taking the knife from Dean and using it against him. The bullet, however, goes right under the creature’s outstretched arm, missing it entirely as it pushes Dean back into the pile of skids, the gun knocked from Dean’s hand. The whole thing comes down around and on top of them, and when the dust settles, Dean is mostly horizontal, his left arm is pinned (and likely fractured). He’s lying on broken boards and rusty nails, his back is probably scraped up, and his neck is stiff with how his head whipped back when he fell.

The shifter got lucky, managing to avoid the pinning part, though its shoulder really doesn’t look so hot, blood soaking into the white t-shirt that it definitely stole from Sam.

“I’m so glad you found me, Dean,” it coos, kicking Dean’s gun far, far away. “I was so _scared_.”

“Cut the crap,” Dean retorts, biding his time, hoping like hell that John heard the crash and is on his way over here. “I know exactly what you are.”

“So you do.” The shifter’s eyes flick white again, and it picks up Dean’s knife, carefully avoiding the blade.

“That’s a good look you’ve got going,” Dean jibes through clenched teeth, his arm screaming and aching as he tries to pull it free and yeah, _son of a bitch_ , it’s definitely broken.

“I thought so. Thought I’d slip into something more comfortable. Something more your type.”

Dean works his jaw and swallows hard at the tone of not-Sam’s voice. It’s just like the real thing but for the slight Virginia drawl of it, and the fact that it’s dripping with sex and murder.

“My type?” He laughs, albeit pathetically. “That’d be blondes, sweetheart.”

“Really?” The shifter asks, standing over Dean, knife in hand. “I know different.” It steps one foot over Dean’s chest and then sits, pretty much right in Dean’s lap. Dean swings with his free hand to shove it off, but it parries easily, pulling Dean’s wrist to the floor and leaning hard on it with its knee.

“You know, I always thought you Winchesters were a myth that mommy monsters told their babies about, to teach them lessons about being careful, how it’s such a dangerous world out there. You know, ‘ _don’t go out alone at night, because John Winchester and his boys will get you_ ’.” The shifter slides the knife under Dean’s shirt, cold metal on his stomach as the blade slices roughly through the fabric. Dean’s heart pounds in pure terror, and he wonders if freaks like this can hear stuff like that.

“So imagine my surprise when I go to the bar to get me some dick, and the dick I happen to get is _Dean Winchester_. Of course, It wasn’t until you told me your name that I figured out who you were. That you were real, and that you and John and Sammy came all this way looking for little old me.”

“I’ve heard all the rumours, of course, but you guys are even more fucked up than I’d thought. I figured you must be some kind of sick-in-the-head, being that all you do is kill.” The shifter smiles a twisted parody of Sam’s smile as it drags the point of the knife across Dean’s chest, a bead of blood following the line of the blade. Dean hisses and winces and tries to flinch away, but he’s between the floor and the shifter, wearing Sam’s face, Sam’s hair falling over its inhuman eyes.

“But I’ve been in Sammy’s head and I gotta tell you, Dean,” the shifter whispers, tapping the side of its skull. “There is some real unhealthy stuff going on up here.”

“You’re not him.” Dean is adamant, pretty sure that no one’s coming for him but still isn’t going down without a fight.

“But I could be. I was in your head too, Dean, just for a minute, just long enough to get Sam to come with me. I know what you want. I know _who_ you want. I can do that for you. I can be anyone you want me to be.”

“You’re. Not. Him," Dean says again, firmly, like he's trying to prove it.

“I am though.”

And just like that, the shifter has dropped all pretense, gone into a perfect Sam impression that is way scarier than anything it’s done thus far.

“Dean, come _on_. I know you want me. I want you too, you know I do. I’ll get on my knees for you whenever you want- you just have to ask.”

It kisses Dean then, or tries to- Dean bites into its lip and spits blood in its face. It hits him then, hard, so the blood in his mouth becomes mostly his own. He spits that at the shifter too.

“I don’t want that. Not from him.”

The shifter throws its head back and laughs, an obscene and failed attempt at sounding anything like Sam. Maybe it’s not even trying anymore.

“That’s not what you said when I was sucking your dick,” it taunts and raises the knife to strike.

A hail of bullets catches it in the chest, five shots in quick succession that hit it from shoulder to ribcage, one of them obviously close enough to the heart that  it goes down, slumping off of Dean and falling to the floor next to him, ark blood beginning to pool on the cold cement. Dean looks away almost immediately, not too eager to see the image of a dead Sam Winchester.

“Dean? You okay?”

And it’s _real_ Sam, having lost everything but his boxer shorts, lowering Dean’s gun and then dropping it back where he picked it up. It’s _Sam_ , and Dean is totally okay- he could get up and run a marathon. He tries, but then remembers the broken arm, breathing through the pain as he tries to free himself again.

“Hold still, idiot.” Sam pulls the skid off of Dean’s arm, which Dean immediately cradles to his chest. He looks up at Sam, at his pale skin in the glow of the flashlight (which is still lying around somewhere) and wants to touch him, to make sure that he didn’t get it wrong, that he would know Sam anywhere.

“I knew it wasn’t you,” he says instead, firmly, like he’s trying to prove it.

“How?” Sam is looking at the dead shifter, a little unnerved to say the least.

“I called it Sammy and it didn’t get all whiny at me.”

Sam scoffs softly. “Jerk.”

Sam is smiling, and it _burns_.

Dean smiles back. “Bitch.”

* * *

At the hospital, they give Dean a plaster cast and tell him to come back in three weeks for a check-up. Dean nods and hmm's as the doc rattles off the instructions, the dosages of the pain meds and how to look after his injured arm, knowing they won’t even be in the state three weeks from now. All he can really think about is the fact that Sam’s in a different room, with a different doctor, and Dean knows that he’s okay, he saw him, he just saw him- his separation anxiety never used to be this bad.

Eventually Sam comes back (with a clean bill of health), sits next to Dean on Dean’s bed in the emergency room. They wait in silence while John pays the bill and signs the discharge papers, with what name Dean doesn’t know or care.

“So,” Sam says quietly. “What the shifter said back at the warehouse- did it really-”

Dean is gonna kill him. He really hopes the pain meds kick in soon.

“This is one of those things that we are not talking about,” he snaps. “ _Ever._ ”

“Fine.” Sam turns his head away, lowers his eyes and his voice. “I’ll add it to the list.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Dean/Original Character. I tried to get it over with as fast as I could, but it is necessarily to the setup of the chapter/plot. Dean is also physically attacked later in the chapter, but in a manner that has sexual overtones (not actual sexual assault), and is kissed without his consent in that scene as well (so, sort of sexual assault). 
> 
> Just a warning: Chapter 6 could be a bit late. I've mostly written chapter 7, outlined chapters 8 & 9, and chapter 10 is totally finished but. Chapter 6 is a blank space at this point so yeah. I'll write as fast and as best as I can but I can't promise that it'll be on time.


	6. auld lang syne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> times long past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More edits (and a not at all to scale drawing of a floor plan) by [Me](http://bvcki.tumblr.com/post/148913276519/let-not-man-put-asunder-by-lordisitmine-chapter)!
> 
> Writing this chapter was like pulling teeth. I've been so incredibly blocked lately so I'm sorry if this chapter is a little lacklustre.

* * *

Years from now, when Sam and Dean have both died and been resurrected and had their lives rearranged accordingly, they will look back on this five-month stretch as one looks at the world through a veil- with only vague impressions and fleeting glimpses, movements and shadows against a backdrop of light. Images that, when committed to memory, become half-formed and unimportant once the veil is torn away. These are the times long past; they will only be recalled as paling in comparison to the bright white light of the days that came after, the explosion of colour at the end of a long-burned fuse. The times long past may someday be forgotten, but while they are happening, they seem to stretch on forever.

* * *

 

Their place in Bedford is modest, nothing to brag about- but then, neither are any of the motel rooms they were raised in. The Bedford place is an actual apartment at least, has an actual bedroom with an actual door that actually closes. Not that it matters. One of the first things John did when they moved in was put two twin beds and a dresser in said actual bedroom and declare that Sam and Dean would be sharing. The next thing he did was buy a pullout couch for the living room that he usually only uses when it's in couch form (being that when he finally drinks enough to pass out, he's far too drunk to bother actually pulling the couch out at all).

The bedroom has one window, East-facing, and Dean's bed is pushed against the wall right beneath it. Every morning like clockwork, he rolls over to get away from the invading dawn, unable to go back to sleep once he's been woken. Every morning he watches the window-shaped patch of sunlight move farther down the wall until is falls on Sam's bed, on Sam's still-sleeping face. Every morning, Dean watches how the light picks apart the colours in Sam's hair, the golden-brown flyaway hairs that stick static to his forehead, his features smoothed out by sleep; this is Sam in his most undisturbed form, untouched by all emotion and time. Dean has never really thought of himself as a morning person, but he wakes up early every morning in Bedford and counts the freckles across Sam's nose and thinks maybe he just didn't know what mornings really were before now.

On the day they moved in, (about a week after the ghost of Thomas Meyers and John's map with the red not-circle), there was a mountain of stuff still in the apartment. The previous tenant (old man) had died (natural causes, John wanted to be sure the guy wouldn't come back to haunt them), and his family had just never turned up to claim his things. Furniture, books, clothes even, all smelling of stale cigarette smoke and mothballs and a generally depressing existence. They kept the TV, (it still worked, even if it was as old as the guy who owned it). The kitchen table and chairs stayed too, as did the coffee table and the round rusty-brown straw rug underneath it. Their first week in the Bedford place was spent clearing it out, packing things into boxes and hauling it to the Goodwill mission down the block, which is incidentally where the twin beds and pullout couch came from.

The walls were all varying shades of yellow-gray, and Dean didn't think John would care enough to change them since this wasn't a permanent thing, so it was a surprise when John came in one day with rollers and paint cans, fresh white for the kitchen (minus the exposed brick of the East wall), pale blue for the bedroom and pale green for the bathroom. The white did little to make the kitchen cabinets and counters seem any less outdated (the seventies called), but at least the place no longer looked like it had jaundice.

What Dean remembers most about those first weeks, though, is the absolute sense of normalcy that fell over the three of them while they settled in, like boxing things and bickering over painting techniques was the most exciting part of their everyday lives. Sam got enrolled in the closest high school, Dean started half-looking for part-time work in the neighbourhood- John kept on hunting, but even that had begun to seem normal-by-comparison, like he was just a travelling salesmen, gone for a few days and always back with a good story or souvenirs for his kids.

This normalcy lasted three weeks, at which point it was abruptly and completely shattered. John had stumbled into the apartment at three in the morning, battered and bloody and leaving the white wall a rusty red mess when he leaned against it. Dean was wrenched awake by reality and since then has only closed his eyes tighter when the sun rises, or put a pillow over his head, burrowed further into himself and away from Sam. He started hunting with John again after that. He told himself it was to protect John, to have his back and make sure nothing like that would happen again-

Then the shifter thing happens.

The truth is, Dean doesn't know who he is when he's not hunting.

Not knowing who he is when he's not hunting is a terrifying epiphany. It scares him almost as much as the fact that he has suddenly resigned himself how he feels about Sam without realising it. There was no definitive moment of, _fine, I love him, there's nothing that's gonna change it_ \- it must have just happened gradually- morning by morning.

There are a lot of shit things Dean can live with, but only a few he has to have in order to survive. Dean doesn't know who he is without hunting, but he doesn't know who he is without Sam, either. And he doesn't ever want to have to find out.

On the last day of cleaning, when the old man's stuff had been carted away and their own stuff had been carted in, when the place still smelled of fresh paint, Sam and Dean had sat together on opposite ends of the pullout couch (still in couch form), waiting for John to come back with dinner from Bedford's only pizza place (no delivery- add that to the list of _curses of small town living_ ). It was a Friday (or was it a Saturday?)- it was the weekend, and Sam was starting school on Monday, and things were still bone-chillingly _normal_.

"Dude," Sam had said, kicking at the leg of the coffee table. Dean wasn't paying attention- the TV was on, some decades-old re-run of a sitcom that Dean really couldn't care less about, but provided a distraction from the reality that a shared bedroom with an actual door meant that Dean's self-control Sam-wise was about to take a major hit.

" _Dude_ ," Sam said again, this time kicking Dean.

"What?" Dean grumbled, tearing his eyes from the TV so he could take in Sam's unimpressed expression.

"I think there's something in here." Sam motioned to the coffee table, to the small drawers at either end. He kicked the table leg again and in the drawer, there was the sound of something shifting.

Dean shrugged. "Big deal. S'probably just cigarettes."

He wasn't wrong. Sam wriggled the door open in concentrated silence punctured by the jerk and creak of wood-on-wood and sure enough, the first thing they saw was a pack of Pall Malls. The second thing they saw was something Dean didn't expect.

"A _bible_ ," Sam stated the obvious, pulling the Pall Malls out to get at the book. Dean thought about pocketing the cigarettes when Sam wasn't looking, but figured that Sam would notice anyway.

"Holy Bible: King James Version," Sam read the spine. The book itself was bound in brown leather, well-worn, like it had been read countless times (by the light of many Pall malls). It was thinner than most bibles Dean had ever seen, soft cover rather than hard like the Gideon's in every motel room he'd ever been in.

It took a minute for Dean to realise that Sam had flipped the thing open and was actually reading it.

"Oh, come _on_." He grabbed for the bible, but Sam was quicker, turning his whole body away without even breaking his concentration on the page.

"You don't even _believe_ in that stuff," Dean had griped. Sam still wasn't looking at him, and Dean never thought he'd be jealous of a book.

"You don't know what I believe in, Dean," Sam whispered in retort, got up, and went into the bedroom. Dean tried not to watch him go.

Sam closed the door behind himself.

* * *

  **\- CHRISTMAS -**

 The Winchesters have always marked the passage of time by the incurrence of injuries, by the colour of bruises and the redness of scars. Days and weeks and months are measured by how well bone and muscle have knit themselves back together, or how persistent the aches of a hunt remain.

Dean still has two weeks to suffer through with his arm in its cast, its _plaster prison_ (and several other more colourful names Dean has come up with to describe it). It has been one month since the shifter-that-shall-not-be-named; ergo, it's Christmas.

Sam's school let out last week, after a barrage of assignments and tests and discussions of Senior class Christmas-and-New-Year's parties. The few people he's talked to more than once (acquaintances? friends?) asked him what he was doing for winter break, and he told them he was going on a road trip with his family. It wasn't really a lie.

He's barely been out of school two days before John has them packing their bags, loading the car and driving out of Bedford, out of Virginia altogether, heading Southwest into Tennessee- they drive for fourteen hours and wind up in Springfield, Missouri, for what has got to be the most uneventful hunt that Sam's ever been on in his life. He doesn't even bother going with John and Dean to the salt and burn- it's not like he's never seen a salt and burn before.

They're not even in town long enough to get a motel- Sam sits in the car and waits until John and Dean are finished. It reminds him of when he was little, before he really understood what it was that John was doing- so, it reminds him of when he was incredibly little, almost before he could remember. Because as pretty much as soon as Sam knew anything, it was that monsters exist and that it's John's (and by extension, Sam and Dean's) job to kill them wherever they may be found. The one thing Sam never understood was the _and by extension_ part. It must have something to do with the mother he doesn't remember, with the vengeful wrath that burns in John's heart and in Dean's but not in Sam's, with what John took his boys and walked away from, with what Sam thinks they can still go back to even if no one else believes him.

He reaches into his bag for the bible, keeping one eye on John and Dean at all times. He knows that at best, John will mock him for the bible and at worst, John will take it from him altogether, tear it, burn it, throw it from the car and not even look back to watch it fly across the Interstate. Something about the book makes Sam feel fiercely protective of it, intensely obsessive at times, like if he reads it cover to cover, memorises as many key verses as he can, that some universal truth with come to light. He'll figure out why God created monsters or why monsters killed his mother or why, after all of these injustices, the only person Sam's ever loved the way John loved Mary has to be Dean, the only person Sam can never have. He's only just finished the Old Testament and is about to start into the gospels, so there's a chance he might still find it.

It's the darkest time of night when John and Dean return to the car- Sam has fallen asleep, bible still open in his lap. They leave Springfield and Missouri altogether before Sam wakes up and realises what time it is, what day that makes it, just as the sun comes up in the back window of the Impala.

"It's Monday." He yawns and leans forward, poking Dean, who is driving while John sleeps like a rock in the front seat. "Merry Christmas, Dean."

Dean looks at Sam in the rear-view mirror, nearly blinding himself with the sunlight and Sam's biggest, sleepiest smile, golden-brown flyaway hairs stuck static to his forehead- Dean starts to count freckles out of habit before he remembers he has a road to look at.

"You gonna read us a story from that special book of yours, Sam?" Apparently John is awake, and apparently he knows about the bible. Dean hadn't told him, but there's not much that gets by John anyway, especially when Sam is the one hiding it (Sam is notoriously bad at hiding things). Dean waits for John to take the bible away from Sam, to tear it, to burn it, to throw it from the moving car and watch it fly across the Interstate. Dean looks in his mirror again and knows Sam is waiting for the same thing.

"I didn't-" Sam starts, "I don't-"

"It's okay, Sammy." John cracks his neck and turns his head, looks Sam right in the eye. "Nothing wrong with it. Your mother used to read it to Dean, 'specially on holidays."

This is not at all the reaction that either Sam or Dean was expecting from John re: the secret bible. They both consider it for a moment: Sam in blank shock, Dean in Technicolor memory.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember. The story about the Shepherds and the angels."

"Luke chapter two," John offers, though he has no reason to know that other than it has to do with his dead wife.

"Read that one, Sam," Dean asks, and yeah, it's like he's a kid on Christmas morning.

It only takes Sam a minute to find the right page.

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid."

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."

"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

* * *

**\- NEW YEAR'S -**

They end up spending the rest of the holidays in Kansas, which Dean appreciates the irony of. The suggestion that they drive through Lawrence sits inside him like a bad tickle in your throat during a movie, when coughing would make everyone in the room want to kill you. So he doesn't say anything about Lawrence, though he feels its pull as they traipse around the state- a length of fishing line hooked right between his shoulders, pulling him forward when they're heading toward Lawrence, and backward when they turn away. Sitting for hours and hours in the car has never hurt his back the way that this does.

The welcome the new year in a place called Lebanon.

Dean won't remember this, but the road they take into Lebanon goes right past an old power station built high on a hill, and a cement culvert looking thing beneath it with a steel door that's obviously been locked for ages. Dean barely makes a note of it as they drive by, that this weird place was in Lebanon- but fourteen-or-so years from now, Sam will remind him.

 _Didn't we spend Christmas in Lebanon once?_ He'll say, sitting at a table in a library far fancier than any other library Dean's ever visited, his first underground library for sure.

 _I think it was New Year's_ , Dean will idly reply, squinting at the spines of the dust-covered books and wondering if Cas would be able to help them with translating some of these ancient texts.

 _Right, yeah. What year was that, '99?_ Sam will ask, already pouring over aged, yellow pages.

 _No, no- it was the year after_ , Dean will recall, the pieces not having quite fallen into place. _New year's Eve, two thousand. I remember because-_

He will look at Sam then, all long-haired and tired-eyed, think of how much older he is, how much older they _both_ are- how many times the world has almost ended and how young they were the first time it kind of did. He will meet Sam's eyes and Sam will meet his, then the silence will pass and they will never say another word about it. They get good at that, in the future. Much better at it than they were back then.

But back then is right now, and right now Dean would give anything to skip ahead to the part where it doesn't hurt anymore to look directly at Sam- he would kill and die to fast forward to the part where he finally goes blind from it, then maybe he can get some God damned peace. Because as much as he can live with himself feeling like he does, sometimes he doesn't know how much longer he can live with Sam. Stupid, he knows; most of the time, even a moment without Sam feels like a year without rain. But, there are those days when he wishes that he'd left when he'd had the chance.

While they're in Lebanon, they go to the one tourist attraction it has- a glorified pile of rocks with a flagpole sticking out of the top (with both the Kansas and American flags flying all year round). What makes this pile of rocks so special is the plaque attached to it, one the proclaims the spot to be the geographic center of the contiguous United States. John doesn't see the point, but Sam won't shut up about it, the nerd.

So they go, even though the park is empty and the air is cold, and Sam (who Dean thought would have more respect for national monuments) decides to climb up the rocks and walk in circles around the flagpole while Dean reads the plaque aloud in a pretentious, nasally voice. Sam stops walking and starts laughing, leaning against the pole for support, and Dean really wishes he had a camera with him. It should be photographed, he thinks- the center of his universe at the center of the country.

He shakes that thought off pretty quickly and goes back to making Sam laugh- at least he can still act like his motives for doing that are completely selfless.

"I dare you to lick the flagpole," he calls up to Sam. "See if your tongue sticks."

Sam makes a face, jumping down from his perch and kneeling in the snow. "See if your tongue sticks to this!"

Dean is ready for the snowball that thwacks him in the face- completely worth it for the howl of triumph that echoes from Sam's chest. He doesn't let Sam have all the fun though- things quickly escalate into full scale war, until John yells at them from the parking lot that it's time to go, he's freezing his ass off, he shouldn't have brought them here.

Dean yells back their agreement and reaches down to help Sam up from where one of Dean's snowballs had knocked him right back on his ass. Sam takes the offer of assistance, gripping Dean's hand and pulling himself up to his feet.

As it always is when they touch, the world slows down for a second, stopping and zeroing in on the place where skin meets skin. There are a few seconds of prolonged eye contact, which is just enough to throw Sam off- Dean surprises him with a fist-full of snow down the back of his jacket.

" _Fuck!_ " Sam screams as Dean walks away, outright guffawing.

"That's not _fair_ ," he hears Sam protest helplessly. "You totally took advantage of-"

Dean stops in his tracks and almost, almost turns around to see the look on Sam's face, to hear him talk about the first, most important thing on the list of _things that they don't ever talk about._

"Boys! Let's go!" John calls again, and whatever Sam was about to say gets lost to the December wind.

* * *

New Year's Eve itself is somewhat hectic. The reason they came to Lebanon in the first place was a phone call John received from a couple of hunter buddies, Gary and Chris. They had teamed up to take down a coven of witches in the area, but the coven was bigger than they previously thought, and they needed a couple extra sets of hands. They meet up with John's friends, make the game plan, and head out on the afternoon of the thirty-first. It's late night by the time they're done, cold and dirty but alive, none of them injured worse than anything a stiff drink can't fix. Dean is better off than all of them, but bitter as hell because they made him be the lookout- it's just another reason he can't wait to be free of this cast.

Once the witches are dead ( _ding dong_ , Dean sings, much to Sam's poorly-disguised amusement), they regroup at one of the hunter's houses, (is it Gary's or Chris's, Dean can't remember which one is which). It's an old split-level, straight out of the sixties, and the inside is about as clean and orderly ad Dean would expect a hunter's house to be (the place in Bedford is immaculate, but only because John is all 'once a Marine, always a Marine' when it comes to cleanliness- and everything else). Sam heads for the basement while Gary (or Chris?) breaks out the booze, while Chris (or Gary?) moves mountains of old newspapers and takeout containers to make room at the kitchen table. Shots are poured and lifted and Gary (yeah, Dean's pretty sure it's Gary) makes a toast.

"There's still a few minutes left 'til the New Year, and we have plenty more shots to do, so I'll start the toasts off with this- to a good hunt, some dead witches, and Dean Winchester, best one-armed look out this side'a the state line!"

They all (but Dean) laugh and all (including Dean) down their shots- more follow in quick succession, the four of them draining a fifth of Jack in less than ten minutes (most of it split between the three senior members of the group, but who's counting). Beers come after that, and by then Dean has been completely left out of the conversation, which is mainly three old guys reminiscing about the things they've killed and the women they've fucked, and Dean really doesn't care to listen to that right now (or ever). He snags his beer off the table and disappears from the room; no one notices him go.

He wanders around the house for a while until he lets himself go where he wanted to go when they got here- downstairs with Sam.

The basement of the house is exactly the same as the upstairs, but without windows. This makes it smaller and darker and more depressing on the whole. It's the perfect place to say goodbye to the kind of year he's had.

Sam is in the den, on the couch (reddish leather, looks like a bear's been using it as a scratching post), legs pulled up under him and his nose buried in, what else, the (not) secret bible. Dean rolls his eyes and drops into the seat at the opposite end of the couch. Sam doesn't even acknowledge Dean's presence, just turns his page and keeps reading.

Dean is reminded of nights in Bedford, Sam at the table doing homework while Dean and John clean guns or watch TV or argue about meaningless things that they always forget to be mad about as soon as the conversation is over. He's struck with the sudden need to go back, though they've only been gone a week and a half, though they've only lived in Bedford for a month and a half, though they've never lived anywhere that long and Dean doesn't really have a reason to miss it except for that he just _does_. It itches and nags and him and he recognises this as the feeling of being lost, of missing home, which is ten kinds of stupid because how can he be missing home when Sam is sitting _right there?_

"Whatcha read'n about?" He asks, rather casually he thinks.

"Nunna your business," Sam shoots back without looking up. There's a clock in this room somewhere, though Dean can't see it- it keeps ticking as Sam's words lapse back into harsh silence.

"What," Dean glares at Sam and drinks more beer, "is your problem?"

"Nothing." That's a lie.

"I'm just trying to make conversation." Dean is a little bit too tipsy to be fighting with Sam right now. "You know, taking interest in your life. I'm your brother, you know."

Yeah, more than a little bit too tipsy.

"Believe me, I'm aware." Sam is verbally lashing out, but he seems to be physically shrinking back from Dean with every sharp word he throws Dean's way.

"Oh, so _that's_ what this is about." Dean turns his whole body to face Sam, going so far as to pull one leg up on the couch so he can lean a little closer. "You're still pissed about the park yesterday, and the snow, and the-"

Sam looks at him then, wide-eyed, and Dean's brain catches up with his runaway mouth.

"Hell of a way to bring in the twenty-first century," he whispers, more to himself than to Sam, who can't resist correcting him in his 'you're drunk and an idiot and I'm the smart one for a reason' voice.

"The twenty-first century started last year Dean."

"It didn't though," Dean argues. "Not really." He puts his beer down between his feet and holds up his empty hands. Sam lowers the bible and watches him.

"It's like this." Dean wiggles his fingers as he counts. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight nine, ten." He does jazz-hands for emphasis. "The next group of ten doesn't start with ten, it starts with eleven. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, yadda yadda yadda. So the twenty-first century doesn't _really_ start until two thousand and _one_."

Almost endless impenetrable silence. And then-

"That is either the nerdiest or the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say."

Dean huffs, scrunching his shoulders and reaching for his beer. "I know things. Like how to count."

"So you're telling me that this whole year has been a lie." Sam puts the bible down in his lap as he stretches his legs out. "If it wasn't really the first year of the twenty-first century, but we've been pretending like it was, then it wasn't really the last year of the twentieth century either. So, it doesn't count."

"Doesn't count." Dean takes another sip. "Never happened." The bottle is empty now. "You can start aaaaall over."

"Start all over," Sam murmurs.

Upstairs, John and Gary and Chris have started counting down. Their drunken, sloppy voices carry down through the house, a little muffled but impossible to ignore.

"Ten, nine, eight-"

Dean drops the empty bottle at the same time Sam drops the bible.

"Seven, six, five-"

Fourteen-or-so years from now, when Sam asks him what year they were in Lebanon for New Year's, this is how Dean will remember.

"Four, three, two, one-"

 _Start all over,_ Dean thinks _. Yeah right._

He kisses Sam easily, slides his hand into Sam's hair just as quickly as Sam kisses him back, opening his mouth almost right away, pushing his tongue over Dean's bottom lip and into his mouth like he's spent all his time thinking about this, exactly like Dean has. It's barely another second before Dean is on top of Sam entirely, crowding him against the arm of the couch and cradling the back of Sam's neck with his non-broken hand while his other one goes from Sam's hair to his shirt, tugging it down at the collar just enough to show the scar from July, the one that he didn't touch last time because it wasn't even a scar then, it was skin that had just been sewn back together. The skin is thicker now though, the marvel of the human body and Dean can touch, and he does, keeps kissing Sam until Sam honest-to-God whimpers into his mouth.

It's at this point Dean stops thinking and just _does_ , pulling his mouth from Sam's and dropping it to that scar- not biting, not even kissing so much as just learning the line of it with his lips, memorising the route of it across Sam's skin like running fingers over a globe, the raised scar a mountain range that cuts across the unexplored territory of Sam's body. Dean revels in it, that he's the one who gets to map out Sam's body, he's the one-

Except he's not. He can't be.

They're singing upstairs; it's off-key and horrible and it snaps Dean back to reality quicker than a blow to the head will knock you off your feet.

"Should aaaall aquaintence beee forgot, and neeever brought to miiind! Should aaaall acquaintance beee forgot, and ooold laang syyyyne!"

The singing stops. There are footsteps, and then-

"Dean!" Someone shouts, Gary or Chris, standing at the top of the stairs, well out of sight but not out of earshot. "Where'd you go? Come have another drink!"

"Fuck," Dean whispers into Sam's neck, and Sam shivers, silently begging _no, don't stop_ , which is the same thing Dean's body is saying and this is why the two of them are _flesh and blood_ to each other.

It's all too easy to pull himself away from Sam, and he should be grateful for that, shouldn't he, grateful that it's easy, because this is the right thing to do and-

"Dean." Sam's voice is wrecked and if Dean has to hear any more of it he's not going to care what Gary or Chris find when they come downstairs looking for him.

Dean says nothing as he rights himself, the alcohol in his brain sloshing around and making him stumble as he stands.

"Happy New Year, Sammy," he mutters.

He turns his back and climbs the stairs, past Gary or Chris and toward the front door. He lurches out onto the porch and down the stairs and pukes his guts out right there in the snow. He knows this is as close to _starting all over_ as he's ever gonna get.

* * *

**\- JANUARY -**

 On the day that Dean's cast can finally come off, John is away on a hunt.

They'd stayed on the road for the second week of Sam's winter break, which Dean was both grateful for and couldn't stand in equal measure. On the one hand, he wasn't stuck in a one bedroom apartment with Sam and nothing else to do (not that Sam is something to do, he isn't, he's not, he's-). There was driving and hunting and then more driving to keep him distracted. But then, there were motels and hours in the Impala with Sam, either reading his damn bible or looking at Dean like Dean had just shot him in the back.

Not that it really matters whether they were on the road or not; they've barely spoken since New Year's anyway. Sam didn't talk to John at all either for the first few days, and Dean had begun to wonder if he's kissed the words right out of Sam's mouth once and for all.

How they've been able to sneak their miserable sexual tension, the long looks and the red faces and general sense of yearning past John this whole time is beyond Dean. But the silence is impossible to hide. John calls them on it as soon as they get back to Bedford, the day before Sam has to go back to school.

"I don't know what kind of beef you two have going on right now, but you'd better deal with it before I get back," he says, though he won't look Dean in the eye as he does.

He kicks them both out on the curb in front of the Bedford place and leaves them there with just the keys to the apartment and enough money for groceries.

Three days later, Sam and Dean still aren't talking. Dean was unable to escape the nightmare of being alone in a one bedroom apartment with Sam and nothing ~~else~~ to do. It's been six weeks since the shifter-that-shall-not-be-named, two weeks since Christmas, almost ten days since Dean had his mouth on Sam's skin (he's still clinging to that memory- ten days feels like a lifetime). His cast is finally ready to come off and Sam isn't talking to him and John is away on a hunt.

When Sam comes through the door at three forty-five, red-nosed from his walk home in the cold, he is greeted by the sight of Dean at the kitchen sink, holding a dish towel to his hand and grumbling obscenities at the bloody hacksaw blade sitting on the counter.

"Dean, what the fuck?"

They're the first words Sam has spoken to him since he said Dean's name in the wrecked voice while sitting on a couch in Lebanon, Kansas and Dean is so _glad_ that Sam is pissed enough to actually start talking again. If he'd known that cutting his hand open was all Sam needed to overcome the inertia of his passive-aggressive silent treatment, Dean would have done it ages ago.

"It's been six weeks and I want this thing offa me," Dean growls, dropping the dishtowel and clawing uselessly at the cast. Sam can see now that it's been cut into, but so has Dean's hand.

"For fuck's sake."

"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Dean grouses.

"Do all of your thoughts include kissing relatives?"

Dean can't help it- he starts laughing. He's bleeding and in pain and his cast won't some off and one look at Sam's face tells him that this was the _point_ \- to make Dean laugh. Dean is more than happy to oblige, carrying on in near hysteria for a minute before he can find it in himself to calm down.

"Sit," Sam orders, already moving to clean the blood from the hacksaw blade. Dean does what he's told, straddling a chair, leaning his chin against the back of it and slamming his casted wrist down on the table, impatient as all hell.

Sam, as always, approaches the challenge much more carefully than Dean did. He pulls his chair as close to the table as he can, leans in close over Dean's arm and cuts, very slowly, very gently, a line down the center of Dean's cast. It takes a long time; his neck starts to hurt and his fingers start to cramp, but it's worth it for the way Dean holds deathly still under Sam's touch, how he holds his breath near the end and how his bleeding hand twitches whenever Sam's hair falls forward to touch it, like Dean has to stop his hand from jumping off the table and pulling Sam in, like he did almost ten days ago (Sam is still clinging to that memory- ten days feels like a lifetime).

When the cast finally comes off, Dean nearly whoops in celebration. Sam gets one whiff of the empty cast and nearly gags.

"Ew."

Dean picks it up and throws it at him. Sam shrieks and ducks his head down and when he looks back up Dean isn't even trying to keep himself from laughing.

"We good?" He asks a moment later. "About New Year's, I mean."

Sam recognises this as a much softer more jovial version of a moment back in July, in a diner somewhere near the Maryland coast, John's back turned and Sam still riding a three-day high off Dean's mouth. This is a softer version of Dean's shoulders pulled taught, his words bit out through clenched teeth.

_It was adrenaline, it was nerves, it was whatever means that it meant nothing. You hear me, Sam? It never happened, and it'll never happen again._

"What happened on New Year's?" Sam asks in reply- he thinks about the shifter for just a second, promising to be whoever Dean wanted it to be. Yeah. He can do that.

"Atta boy." Dean smacks Sam on the back and goes to take a shower. Sam dies a little more inside.

* * *

Dean turns twenty-two a couple of weeks later. It's a Wednesday like any other; most of the day passes without incident or event; Dean is perfectly happy to sit quietly with a six-pack, watching TV and doing commentary while Sam is at the table with his History homework. John is gone (he said on a hunt but wouldn't let Dean go with him) and won't be back until tomorrow. Dean has long since gotten over any resentment he has regarding the fact that John has missed more of Dean's birthdays than he's been around for. Besides, there's plenty of other things for him to resent John for.

Eight-or-so years from now, Dean will meet a kid named Adam Milligan, and Dean will finally know where John went the times wouldn't let Sam and Dean go with him. He will finally realise why, when he tallies the number of times they went to certain states, Minnesota had a one of the lowest scores. He'll never know if John was with Adam on this specific day, but he'll always have a sneaking suspicion.

Yeah. There's plenty of things to resent John for.

Dean gets off the couch after beer number three, to stretch his legs and take a piss and then head to the fridge for beer number four. He walks by the table and just _happens_ to look down over Sam's shoulder- what he sees definitely isn't History homework.

"Is that-"

Dean grabs at the papers from in front of Sam, who tries to snatch them back but fails.

"University pamphlets?" Dean shuffles through the pile in his hands. " _Scholarship_ applications?"

"Dean, give those back."

"Are you _kidding_ me with this?" Dean drops the papers back on the table like his hands have lost all strength and feeling. Sam doesn't shrug, doesn't deny the accusation that Dean's not even really aware he's making. He stays silent, and Dean does all the talking.

"This is- you- did you honestly think this was a good idea? That you could hide this?"

Sam is notoriously bad at hiding things. But, to be fair, he didn't know he was supposed to be hiding this.

"And even if you _did_ get in, what are the odds of you getting a full scholarship on top of that? Do you think Dad has money for this? That he's even gonna let you go?" _That I'm gonna let you go?_

"Dean." Sam sighs, gathering the papers and straightening them out in front of him. "They give these to everyone. We're supposed to fill out the applications and stuff, for resume building and career planning or whatever. It's an assignment."

Dean just stares at him for a second, kind of like he did just after their first kiss last summer that didn't happen, or right before the kiss on New Year's that didn't happen; like he's trying to decide if this is real, and if he's willing to let it stay that way.

"Okay," he says eventually, quietly, and goes to the fridge to get another beer. Neither of them say a word for the rest of the night (they're getting better at not talking about things- imagine how good they'll be at it in fourteen-or-so years). Sam mails his applications out two days later. Dean doesn't know about it.

Sam is a lot better at hiding things than Dean thinks he is.

* * *

**\- VALENTINE'S DAY -**

 It's another Wednesday, and Dean is exhausted. He and John got in late enough for it to be considered early morning, driving through the night to make it back after a physically demanding fight with a werewolf two or three counties over. No real injuries, but there was a lot of running and jumping and falling involved. Dean did clock his head pretty good though, so he's got a splitting headache on top of the muscle fatigue. He thought he was in better shape than that, but sitting in the car for hours and hours right after a fight makes his whole body stiff as hell once they get back to Bedford.

When they get upstairs, John immediately collapses on the couch, not even bothering to take his jacket or boots off. Dean stands in the middle of the darkened living room for a minute, brain throbbing dully in his skull as he tries to decide whether he should take a shower right now or just go to bed and shower when he wakes up. He feels sweaty from the running and jumping and grimy from the dirt he'd fallen in after the running and the jumping, right when he clocked his head pretty good against the ground. He digs his fingers into his stiff neck (a mild case of whiplash, maybe?) and shuffles toward the bedroom, still undecided on the shower.

He kicks his boots off as quietly as he can, leaving them just outside the bedroom and then pausing in the doorway. What little light there is in the room makes everything glow an otherworldly blue. The only sound is Sam's soft breathing, the only movement his chest as it pulls air in and out. Outside this apartment, the streets are empty and the sky is full of stars- the night is cold and crisp and this moment is the very definition of peace.

Dean ends up deciding on the shower, one of the quickest he's ever taken, his eyes barely staying open as he stands beneath the warm spray. He puts on a pair of boxers before he pops a couple Vicodin and drops like a sack of potatoes onto his bed. He's asleep before his head hits the pillow.

When he wakes up in the middle of the afternoon, the sun is streaming through the windows and Sam's bed is empty. He listens for a moment to the absolute silence of the apartment and decides he likes listening to Sam's breathing a lot better. No surprise there.

Dean eventually drags his ass out of bed, showers again (just because he _can_ ), and then putters around the kitchen looking for something that resembles a meal. One bowl of stale cheerios and a few fried eggs later, he finally notices it.

Sam never leaves home without the bible. Dean's been getting more and more concerned, getting close to the verge of saying something to John every time he sees Sam leaning over it, hands hovering, fingers sliding with the lightest touch across the fragile pages, turning them so carefully, so reverently. Dean can only imagine that this is how Sam must touch the things he loves, and he tries to remember if Sam has ever touched _him_ this way.

(Dean doesn't know how to touch the things he loves without hurting them- he can count all the times he's touched Sam recently on one hand, and the only way he can describe it is in terms of how much he needed to, how much he wanted to, of how painful it was when he had to stop. Maybe that's why he he's become so good at keeping his hands to himself.)

Now that Dean is looking at the bible (now that he's _not_ looking at _Sam_ looking at the bible), he's noticing things about it that he hadn't before- how it has even more cracks in the binding, how one corner of the leather cover has been worried at until it's basically been torn off. There are little sticky notes jutting out from the top and sides, marking off specific pages- some are orange, some are yellow, some are green- leave it to Sam to colour-code the _Bible_.

Dean shoves his plate aside and pulls the bible across the table, closer to himself, running his fingers over the sticky notes. He picks the first one (green) and shoves his fingers between the pages, flipping the book open.

Sam has only highlighted a few lines of text on the page- it jumps right out at Dean, the bright yellow burning right into his retinas.

_And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh_

and a few lines below that,

_cleave unto_

It's only half of a sentence, the highlighted words taken out of context from the meaning of the whole verse, and Dean wonders why these words stood out to Sam from all the others. he touches the green sticky note at the top of the page and then closes the bible, flipping just the front cover open on a hunch. Sure enough, there's another sticky note with a legend for the colour coded system. It's almost like Sam _wanted_ Dean to find it.

_orange - history  
yellow - mythology_

and

_green - Dean_

Correction. It's _exactly_ like Sam wanted Dean to find it.

Dean slams the bible shut and shoves it away from him. It slides and nearly flies right off the table. He sits and stares at it for a while, counting every green sticky note in the damn thing. He's torn between wanting to know and not wanting to know, but for the sake of both of those wants, he doesn't look. He forces himself to wash dishes and watch TV and look everywhere but the bible.

Sam walks in the door not long after, making a beeline for the table, pulling the bible into his arms like it's a long-lost relative, pretending like he didn't leave it there knowing Dean would look at it. Dean scowls.

"I mean, I always knew you were a bookworm, Sammy, but I never took you for a Bible thumper. You haven't converted, have you?"

"Converted from what? It's not like we were raised to believe in anything," Sam points out. "You don't have to be a dick about it. Faith is important for a lot of people. It gives them hope when they can't find it anywhere else."

"I'm just saying, faith, hope- those can be dangerous things."

"How would you know?" Sam snaps. Something about his face darkens and twists and for a second, Dean doesn't even recognise him. It's not the first time that he's wondered if Sam's love of that book is driven by something other than his need to find the answer to every question there ever was.

"Whatever," he says, and Sam's face goes back to normal.

* * *

That night, Dean hits the bar for the first time in a long time. He picks up a girl whose name he forgets the next morning- she's not a shifter or a vamp or a werewolf or anything, just a substitute for what Dean really wants. They go back to her place and she begs him to fuck her, and he does, and it's fast and it's dirty and it's just what he needs- that's what he tells himself.

He doesn't stay, she doesn't ask him too, and he walks back across town at one in the morning, letting the cold lick the sweat off his skin and allowing himself the indulgence of pretending that he wasn't thinking about Sam the entire time.

* * *

**\- EASTER -**

Nine-or-so years from now, when Sam is told that he's always been destined to help Lucifer destroy the world, he will think of this Easter and laugh. Later, he'll ask Dean if Dean remembers and Dean will deny it- he gets so good at that in the future- he no longer lets the truth show in his eyes, not even for a second. Sam will never be able to do that, not like Dean can.

Sam will think about his destiny remember an Easter, nine-or-so years past, as the only other time he simultaneously felt this close to and far from God.

* * *

The humour of this Good Friday being Friday the Thirteenth isn't lost on Dean in retrospect. While it's happening, though, it's like every scary movie rolled into one.

It starts around six in the morning- Dean is stretched out on his bed, half asleep, basking in the warm spring breeze coming through the open window, half-asleep and happy that spring has finally arrived. He doesn't even hear the bathroom door open, or look up at the movement in the corner of his eye.

"Dean."

"What." Dean barely glances up at Sam, does a double take and then jumps right to his feet. "Dad, get in here!"

John bursts into the room posthaste and stops in the doorway. Dean's honestly kind of surprised that John's not armed, what for the way Dean yelled.

Sam is fresh out of the shower, still dripping in fact, only having stopped to put on a pair of boxers before he came to find Dean.

John disappears for five long, tense, silent seconds, returning with an armful of towels. He throws one at Dean who just looks on, terrified and dumbstruck.

"Dean, pull yourself together," John scolds, already wrapping a towel tightly around Sam's wrist. "Get over here and help me stop the bleeding."

* * *

 " _Stigmata?_ " Dean asks while he changes Sam's bandages (again). "Isn't that an eye condition?"

It's been a little less than an hour and the bleeding still hasn't stopped. John is in between phone calls, going through every single hunter on his contacts list, trying to find someone who might know what the hell is going on and what the hell they have to do to make it stop.

"That's _astigmatism_ , dumbass." The blood loss is making Sam snarky. Dean would smack him upside the head, but he figures that Sam's probably in enough pain already. It's unsettling, and he doesn't quite know how Sam is still conscious, let alone how he's cognizant enough to bitch at Dean for some bad word association.

"Stigmata is something the Catholic church believes in," John explains, already dialing another number into his phone. "It's when a Saint or a disciple is blessed with the wounds of Christ."

"Oh yeah, I feel really blessed." Sam is acting like this is a minor inconvenience rather than a life-threatening event. Dean remembers the last life threatening event (the old lighthouse, Sam's neck ripped open, the blood so fresh and warm it might as well have burned Dean's hands) and shudders.

"Something's gotta be doing this, right?" Dean remains resolutely nonchalant- well, as nonchalant as he can be while pressing gauze to a bleeding hole in his brother's foot. "So what are we thinking. Pissed off spirit, demon with a sick sense of humour?"

"I've never seen anything like this before." John scowls, hanging up the phone after getting just another voicemail. Leaving messages will do him no good, not when it's such a time sensitive situation. "I don't know what would do this, or why- it's not a curse- it's a _myth_ , it's just a religious phenomenon-" his eyes widen and Dean hangs on his next word. " _Oh_."

Sam is beginning to feel a little out of it, but something tells him he should still be able to follow this conversation.

"What does that mean?" He turns to Dean and wants to touch his face, flatten out the worried line between Dean's eyebrows, softly kiss the frown from his lips. He doesn't though. "What does 'oh' mean?"

Dean looks at him, looks at him, wow, Dean is looking at him- and smirks.

"How much do you wanna bet the old man was Catholic?"

Sam still doesn't get it.

"Where's that bible?" John is already looking, opening kitchen cupboards, sticking his head into the bathroom, like he's gonna find it in the most ridiculous place he looks.

A single pang of rage cuts through Sam's disorientation, followed by a constant hum of panic. He can't let them find the bible. They can't have it. It's _his_. All they want to do is destroy it. _You can't let that happen_ , says the voice in Sam's head, the one that's been getting louder and louder since he found the bible seven months ago. _You have to protect me_.

"I, uh. I left it at school. Forgot it. In my locker." It's the worst lie he's ever told, but he knows that neither Dean nor John has a reason to think he's telling anything other than the truth. Dean seems a little suspicious, but-

"You're sure?" John asks, already heading for the door. "What's the locker number?"

"214, but-" Sam watches him go. "The school will be locked."

"You think a locked door ever kept Dad from something he wanted?" Dean shakes his head and his voice drops low and whispery even though they're alone. "I swear to God, Sam, if you don't pull through this-"

"You'll kill me?" Sam guesses, smiling a big, dopey smile. "Kind of redundant. Besides, if Dad doesn't find the bible-" he can't, he won't- "it'll be over soon."

"The hell are you talking about?"

" _Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over the land unto the ninth hour_ ," Sam quotes. " _And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice saying Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani? That is to say My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ "

"What?" Dean is officially terrified. Sam has gone dead in the eyes and his voice doesn't sound like his own. It harkens back to the shifter, and Dean isn't ready to deal with anything like that ever again. He doesn't realise yet that this is worse.

" _Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost._ " Three hours, Dean That's how long it took him to die. I've only got two hours left." Sam stands from the couch, wobbling and wincing as he hobbles away on his bleeding feet. "I'm going to lie down."

Dean immediately calls John.

"Dad, you'd better hurry. It's getting worse."

"The hell do you mean, 'it's getting worse'?" Dean can hear the sound of shattering glass and in the background, followed by John's laboured breathing as he squeezes through whatever window he's just broken.

"He's acting loopy. Quoting scripture, saying he only has two hours left to live- he doesn't sound like himself at all. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's _possessed_."

John's footsteps, echoing through the empty hallways of the high school, stop completely.

" _Possessed?_ " John's voice is on the incredulous side of panicked. Dean listens to the clunk of bolt cutters slicing their way into Sam's locker. "Shit."

"What?" Stupid question- Dean already knows what.

"It's not here."

There's a sudden onset of murmuring from in the bedroom- the low, unearthly cadence of Sam's not-voice creeping beneath the door.

John is running, soles clapping against the ground. "I'm on my way, Dean."

"Hurry," Dean says, hanging up the phone as he watches the bedroom door open.

Sam emerges, holding the bible, his eyes dulled and lost in a thousand yard stare that pierces right through Dean's chest. Every step Sam takes leaves a red smear on the floor, blood seeping through the bandages as he walks toward Dean.

"Sam." Dean circles the room, putting the couch between himself and Sam. "I need you to give me that bible."

"No, Dean," Sam replies. "You can't make me. You're not in charge of me. You're not in charge of my life."

"You're not yourself right now, Sam," Dean whispers. He's weaponless in the face of this fight, brought down by the truth in Sam's words, even if it's not Sam who's saying them.

"You don't know that, Dean," Sam snaps. "You don't know me."

He reaches out, and Dean feels an invisible fist tightening in his chest, crushing his heart until it threatens to stop beating, until it gets too head to breathe.

"We can work this out," he wheezes. "This isn't over yet. You said- you said the ninth hour. We have time. We can work this out."

Sam's head tilts and his voice drops. If it were anyone else, there'd be an exorcist joke in there somewhere.

"There's no more time. This has gone on long enough."

He lets Dean go. Dean falls to the floor, clutching his chest and gasping for air, grabbing the top of the couch and pulling himself up to his feet. He immediately runs for the gun in the kitchen drawer, not sure what he's gonna do with it. It's already too late to find out- the drawers have suddenly burst into flames. Dean  jumps back, stumbling and falling and looking up just in time to see Sam lower his hand again. He raises the bible and opens it, blood dripping from the growing hole in his wrist, down his fingers and onto the pages as he rifles through them.

" _Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him_."

Dean tries to get up, but pain shoots through his legs and keeps him flat on the ground.

" _But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water_."

A burst of red soaks the side of Sam's shirt; Sam doesn't even flinch, and Dean can only hope that Sam is still in there somewhere, and if he's not that- no. He's still in there. He has to be. Dean pushes through the pain in his legs, clawing his way to hands and knees; the fire has begun to spread, heat already making Dean's clothes stick to him, threatening to roast every hair on his head unless he does something, and fast.

This is when John bursts through the door in all his perfectly-timed glory, gun drawn and leveled at Sam before Dean can tell him not to shoot. It's irrelevant; as soon as John sees the fire, he lowers his weapon, and a lot of things happen in a very short amount of time.

Sam (or the spirit, or whatever) is startled by John kicking the door in. He looks up, away from the bible, and the pain in Dean's legs eases enough that he can get up, lunge at Sam (or the spirit, or whatever) and tackle him to the ground, wrestle the bible from his hands and pin him to the floor.

"Dean, the bible!" John yells, and Dean kicks it away, behind him. John picks it up and throws it into the flames. It lands in the sink and burns, pages curling in and vaporising all in a matter of seconds.

"We have to get out of here," John says, just as Dean notices Sam has stopped struggling, that whatever was controlling him has left, and left him unconscious.

"Dean, take your brother outside as fast as you can- don't look back."

John is already running for the bedroom, grabbing Dean's duffel from under his bed and dumping the dresser drawers into it.

Dean would ask why they can't just call the fire department, why they can't just stay for once, but he's too busy being four years old all over again, having just been handed his baby brother and told to flee his burning childhood home.

"Now, Dean! _Go!_ "

* * *

Dean is out of breath as he hauls Sam into the backseat, light-headed and heart racing when he holds Sam's hands, pulls his shirt up to wipe away the blood.

The wounds have closed, without a single scar to speak of. Sam is only worse for wear in that his skin is paler than it was; Dean thinks about how long Sam slept the last time he nearly bled out. Dean coaches himself not to panic, Sam will wake up, he'll be fine.

John runs out into the street, carrying Sam's backpack and Dean's duffel. He throws them in the backseat next to Dean and Sam and then they're off, speeding out of Bedford like it was only ever just another town they happened to pass through.

When they cross the town line, something lets go in Dean's chest, unlatches and reattaches itself to Sam, still asleep beside him.

* * *

Sam comes to with his face pressed to Dean's shoulder, in the back seat of the Impala, engine roaring in his ears and wheels rumbling down an old dirt road he's never seen before. Consciousness comes back to him like a head-on collision, all at once and without warning. He bolts upright, only to find a staggering headache and the feeling that he's just come out of a hypnotic trance- all he knows is that he's forgotten something.

"What- what happened?" he whispers, squinting against the light shining in through the window over Dean's shoulder. Dean turns to him, pulled from an apparent trance of his own. He looks down at Sam with unbridled relief, and Sam thinks that it's the most open Dean has been in months, even if it is just a look in his eye.

"Nothing happened. You're okay. Everything is fine."

Dean is lying. Sam knows he's lying but doesn't press the issue, doesn't ask about the blood on his hands or the lingering smell of smoke- the question dies altogether when Dean reaches up to cup the side of Sam's face and pull his head back down.

"Go back to sleep, Sam."

Sam breathes Dean in and does just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mentions/depictions of wounds (and blood), specifically the wounds of Jesus- holes in the wrists, the feet, the side (also known as Stigmata). I don't know if that could be triggering for some people, but better safe than sorry. Also, you know, just a warning for the inversion/perversion/general misuse of the Bible (I mean, you knew this already, this whole thing is named after part of a Bible verse), which I'm probably going to hell for despite the fact that I was raised a born-again Christian.
> 
> I totally fudged the timeline with the Adam reference; John didn't get in contact with Adam until 2002, when Adam was twelve. But I don't caaaaaare.
> 
> The Bible verses/passages referenced in this chapter are as follows:  
> Luke 2 verses 8-20  
> Genesis 2 verses 23-24  
> Matthew 27 verses 45-50  
> John 19 verses 32-37


	7. broken levees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> resolve threadbare and knees ready to give

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

The end of April finds them both tired, their resolve threadbare and knees ready to give in under the weight of their mutually exclusive secret. This secret is made heavier by the fact that there really is no secret anymore. Whenever they look at each other, they both know that they both know. But neither one of them seems to be willing to cross the invisible line painted down the middle of every motel bed they've shared in the last ten months.

* * *

May second dawns with the red Louisiana sun, crawling over the tops of reeds and bony willows, seeping in through the dirty windows of a poorly kept, (technically) borrowed shack somewhere deep in the bayous near the gulf coast. Something in the swamp here has been eating people from the nearest town, and as 'it came from Black Lagoon' ridiculous as that sounds (even for _their_ line of work), John is intent on finding and killing this thing, even if it means completely disappearing for the better part of his son's eighteenth birthday.

Sam, who is of course used to sleeping in the back of a roaring Impala, is woken by the eerie silence that pervades the single bedroom of the shack. The west-facing window lets in little of the high noon light, and for a glorious moment, Sam has no idea what time it is- it could be any or no time at all. He closes his eyes and basks in all the potential this moment holds.

He opens his eyes and sees Dean, still sleeping, not six inches away from Sam on the lumpy, moth-eaten mattress. He's curled on his side, facing Sam, the ending parentheses to all of the unspoken words between them. Sam is torn between wanting to see the livid green behind Dean's eyelids and wanting to watch Dean's face stay soft for as long as sleep will let it, so he can count the ticks of Dean's eyelashes, fluttering quicker than a hummingbird's pulse.

He settles for waking Dean up just to ensure that he's the first thing Dean sees. Although, when all is said and done, Sam will go to the grave believing that when it comes to Dean's eyes, he never has to settle for anything.

"Dean," he whispers, and it occurs to him just how finite the number of opportunities he has left to do this really is. The number of times he's actually done it is more finite still. He realises that he and Dean are breathing at the exact same pace- slow, deep, steady- until Dean's breath catches as he begins to wake up.

"Urgh," he mumbles with all the eloquence of a two year-old. Instead of opening his eyes, he scrunches them shut tighter, shifting his body and settling his head deeper into the pillow that is his folded up jacket. "Whatime'sit?"

"I dunno. Late enough for you to get your lazy as up, anyway." Sam shoves Dean's shoulder- before he can even pull his hand away, Dean has a steel-trap grip around Sam's wrist. He jabs his fingers into to the side of Sam's neck, and uses Sam's resulting flinch to get the upper hand in what quickly becomes the most epic wrestling match they've has since they were kids. Like all those other childhood wrestling matches, Dean wins, despite Sam's wiry strength and valiant attempts to ward Dean off.

This is how it ends: Sam flat on his back, wrists pinned above his head while Dean kneels almost painfully on his legs. Sam still thrashes, arms straining and feet twitching until he's almost out of breath.

"Dean- get offa me, _jerk_!"

It takes Sam a minute to realise that Dean's not actually paying attention. His eyes (livid green) are unfocused, staring right through to the back of Sam's skull, like if he looks long and hard enough, Sam's mind will magically become readable.

Then Dean licks his lips, and they shine now in the dusty sunlight, and now _Sam_ is the one staring. Dean leans in until their foreheads touch, until their noses bump and Dean's eyelashes brush against Sam's cheek.

This is the moment right before the moment that changes everything- the moment before the moment that shatters the earth, moves mountains, all those things that Sam should really just leave to the epic poets of old. This is long before he knows that his very existence is an epic poem in its own right. The last time they had one of these moments was New Year's, but that wasn't this moment now, time barreling forward with so many months more of longing behind it. When they'd kissed on New Year's, they were able to stop once they'd started. This time, Sam knows that's not an option for either of them.

Sam closes his eyes and holds his breath and keeps completely still as Dean's mouth ghosts over his.

"Happy birthday, Sammy."

Dean is up and off and out of the room in a flash. The air is sucked from Sam's lungs as he watches Dean go, let out in a frustrated sigh that leaves his chest feeling like it might collapse. He rolls onto his stomach and repeatedly slams his head against the mattress, the slow dull thumps at half pace with his heart that has yet to slow down. If he hadn't already had plenty of cause to be sure that this _thing_ he feels is incredibly mutual, he sure as hell does after that slip of Freudian proportions.

He looks at his wrists where Dean had held them down- the skin is still warm, still tingles in a way that has less to do with physical sensation and more to do with the significance of Dean's gesture and how it weighs in Sam's mind. He touches the skin, still slightly red, traces the band of it around his wrist and wonders if there is evidence of Dean there, if the shape of his hands could be found with print dust and fluorescent light.

Sam thinks about forensic science, about the transfer of skin cells and familial DNA and wonders if two people can really ever become one flesh like the good book says.

* * *

They pass the day in relative silence. John left a note on the only rickety table the shack has to offer- this note says something about the creature being dormant (and easier to hunt) during the day, so he'll be gone until sundown unless he finds it sooner. Both Sam and Dean are simultaneously wishing that he finds it sooner while also hoping that he doesn't come back at all today. What both of them _really_ hope for will depend on what one of them breaks down and decides to (read: lets themselves) do.

The shack they've been left in is structurally sound if nothing else. Its three rooms (bedroom, bathroom, sort-of-living-room/kitchenette) straddle the shore of the stagnant water, the front porch steps going down onto a pale dirt driveway that leads off into a patchy forest. The back deck is held up by mossy beams cemented to the swamp bottom, and the view from it is water and cattails and limp willow trees as far as the eye can see.

Since most of the cabin is surrounded by not dry land, John has gone out presumably by boat and left the Impala parked on the dry land side at the foot of the front steps.

Dean goes out sometime in the late afternoon, when the quiet inside becomes truly too much to bear; he pops the Impala's hood and starts looking for things to fix. The only problems he finds are with himself. He resigns himself to sorting through the weapons John left in the trunk, cleaning them one by one and putting them back in their perfectly uniform rows along the trunk's false bottom. Heaven forbid his dad comes back and sees that Dean's been messing around with the weapons for no reason.

He makes it a grand total of one hour before he absolutely _has_ to leave under pain of wanting to pull his own hair out. He goes back inside to grab the keys (on the table next to John's note) and yells at Sam (who's still hiding out in the bedroom) that he's going on a booze run. The nearest town (where people have been getting eaten) is less than a half hour's drive away, but if Dean drives slower than he normally would, he can at least kill an hour and a half before returning to this absolute riot of a birthday party.

* * *

At around five-thirty, Dean pulls up to the shack with cheeseburgers in paper bags and beer in plastic ones. There's also a white box with a cake inside it. Call it an impulse buy- he'd seen cakes at the grocery store, grabbed the least stale looking one and taken it to the register before he could change his mind.

"Honey, I'm home," he mutters, hip-checking the rickety front door closed, arms full of the spoils from his journey.

"Oh good, you brought food." Sam appears in the bedroom doorway, closing the space between them in two long-legged strides and grabbing the greasy fast-food bag right out of Dean's hands.

Dean watches for a minute, not realising that he should be cherishing something as commonplace as Sam ripping into a cheeseburger wrapper, taking a huge bite and then licking hot, drippy ketchup off the side of his hand. Dean has no idea about the health-nut Sam that haunts his future. All Dean knows right _now_ is that Sam's mouth and Sam's hands in any combination are nice to look at. He watches Sam take another bite out of his burger while he rifles through the plastic bags with his free hand and-

"Man, you couldn't have got better beer?"

"Way to thank a man for buying you illegal birthday booze." Dean rolls his eyes. "If you don't want any, that's fine. More for me."

Sam doesn't reply- he just grabs one of the six-packs and heads for the back porch. Dean rolls his eyes again, grabs the rest of it and follows.

* * *

The thing about levees is that they almost always eventually break. If it rains enough, if the river rises just a little too much, if the guy who designed said levee was having an off-day or the guy who built it didn't do his damn job, or even if the levee is just too old to take any more water- then it breaks. And when it breaks, whole towns get washed off the face of the earth. Or, two people come to terms with their (however fucked up) attraction to each other.

Sam is almost to the bottom of the fourth beer in his six-pack when the break finally happens. The beer's not even cold, and it's not even the kind he likes, but it's doing a good job of filing the sharp edge off his fraying nerves. One second he's swallowing stale ale and the next second his eyes wander to Dean's mouth and something in him just _snaps_.

"Fuck it," he hears himself say. Dean is on the verge of reacting to Sam's random expletive, but Sam doesn't give him the chance- he corners Dean against the railing and licks into his surprised and speechless mouth. Both of their beer bottles crash to the half-rotten boards at their feet, remaining unbroken as they roll and slosh and come to a stop, unnoticed by both Sam and Dean. Dean nearly has to break his neck to lean back far enough so his mouth is free to talk.

"Sam, what the-"

"Shut up, Dean." Sam leans forward again, but his mouth is met by the palm of Dean's hand.

"Sam, you're drunk."

"The hell I am." Sam pulls Dean's hand away, gripping his wrist the same way Dean did to Sam's this morning. "You _wish_ I was drunk, 'cause then you'd have a reason to put this off, to not have this conversation like we've been not having it for almost ten months now. If I was drunk, you'd have an _actual_ reason to say no- at least a reason you could justify."

"Sam," Dean sighs. He sounds exhausted. Sam can relate.

"Listen, Dean. I'm _tired_ of this. I know you said we should act like that thing at the hospital last year never happened, but that was a stupid thing to say, because it absolutely _did_ happen. And New Year's? That happened too. And since then, the only thing we _don't_ do is talk about it or do it again. But we do everything else. We _want_ each other, we _look_ at each other- we don't _stop_ looking at each other. We dance around this like it's something that's gonna go away on its own. Well guess what? It's not gonna go away. And maybe it's not good, not healthy, not _normal_ \- but I gave up my last hope for normal a long time ago. So I don't really know how I ever thought that this-" he gestures to the space (or lack thereof) between them- "would be normal either. I'm _tired_ , Dean, and I've given up on normal, and all there's left is you. I just want _you_."

Dean feels out of his body with shock, with shock that he's really shocked at all, because now he gets that he and Sam haven't ever been avoidable; they've only ever been just a matter of time. And now it's playing out like they're on the big screen- so is his life a B grade horror flick or something more like a Greek tragedy?

He doesn't stop to think about it, to consider any consequence- he just takes Sam by the hips, nearly lifting him as he pushes Sam's back toward the nearest vertical and at least somewhat solid surface, the shack's back wall. He _does_ lift Sam after that, pinning him to said door and getting his hands under Sam's thighs, Sam's only instinct being to let him, to wrap his legs around Dean's waist and his arms around Dean's shoulders. It all happens in a split-second- Dean feels Sam gasp more than he hears it, the two of them chest to chest, breathing a single breath before Sam kisses him, like he did last summer, like he did on New Year's, only now there's no way now that he can blame it on drugs and a near death experience or ten shots of whiskey and no self-control. It's also _not_ like the last two times, though, because the last two times, Dean had been so quick to snap out of it, so quick to pretend like it never happened- he's not going to do that this time.

If you were to ask Sam what Dean tastes like in this moment, he would say Dean tastes like nothing- they've both eaten the same food, drank the same beer and now they're sharing the same air, the same silent words; every touch of Dean's mouth is an awed stutter in some new language, and at least one of them must be speaking in tongues because Sam's never felt like this before but somehow he understands _everything_ now.

Dean is relearning the physical law of cause and effect- or rather, he's learning how the physical law of cause and effect applies to Sam specifically. When he pushes his tongue against Sam's, Sam's pushes back. When he bites Sam's bottom lip, Sam shivers. When he holds tighter to Sam's thighs, Sam's hips jump against his, and he reaches for the hem of Dean's shirt. When Dean leans harder into Sam and pins his wrists to the wall, Sam breaks the kiss and moans Dean's name, and Dean really has to figure out every single cause for _that_ effect.

"You like that, huh?" Dean asks, cheeky, licking his own lips and kissing Sam again. "You like being pushed around?"

 _Only by you_ , Sam considers saying, or _I'll like anything you do to me, Dean_ , or just _fuck, yes, please_ , but all he can do is nod.

"Mhm." Dean has a smile pressed to the side of Sam's face while he works a hand between them, gently cupping the bulge in Sam's jeans. "Yeah, yeah I can tell."

This is when it ends, Sam is sure. Any second now, Dean is going to realise just what he's doing; he's doing to revert back to repression mode and say some shit about the heat or the beer and then get the hell outta dodge, just like always. And even if that _doesn't_ happen- part of Sam is still waiting to wake up, to find out that this whole thing is just another wet dream in a series of wet dreams that leave him cold and hollow and alone.

He doesn't wake up.

Dean kisses him again, soft and slow this time, like he's finally getting used to the idea of this not being a once-every-few-months type of thing and more like a _good morning, good night, goodbye_ and _hello hello hello_ kiss, a _just because I can_ kiss, and it's leaps and bounds better than any kiss Sam ever thought he'd get from Dean (or anyone for that matter).

It doesn't _stay_ that way, of course. It soon goes from _just because I can_ to _just because I want to, need to, don't know what else my mouth was made for_. Sam has always worried he'd be bad at this, but Dean makes it seem easy, taking just enough control to give Sam's self-consciousness a rest, but giving Sam enough encouragement (with soft hands and a tilted head) to make Sam's self-confidence soar, to make him feel like it's not just his confidence that's flying. If Sam wasn't drunk before, he is now, intoxicated from having Dean's tongue in his mouth and Dean's hands on his hips.

They kiss for what feels like hours, finding ways to breathe without stopping, ways to talk without speaking. When Dean _does_ stop kissing him, Sam feels strung-out, lips numb and vision blurred from how tightly his eyes have been closed. His dick is straining in his jeans and he can feel that Dean's is too, hard against Sam's ass as he pushes Sam farther up the wall, holding his still so he can grind against him and-

" _Fuck_ , Dean," Sam almost chokes, head falling to Dean's shoulder.

"Later, I promise." Dean smirks. Sam hates how Dean's managing to stay so blasé about all this, but then, he _is_ the one with more experience in this type of situation. What _really_ catches in Sam's mind though is the _later, I promise_ ; Dean's casual certainty that there will be a later and it will involve Sam getting fucked.

"What _now_ then?" He asks, but Dean is already answering, lowering Sam to stand on his own two feet, which Sam doesn't think is possible for a second, weak at the knees as he is- but he stands steady enough, bare feet on rough deck boards as Dean pulls Sam's shirt off, flattening his hands on Sam's ribs and never breaking the contact as he pushes the fabric up and away. Sam lifts his arms, his view of Dean obstructed for only a second, a second too long for his liking.

"Right now," Dean whispers, quiet emotion replacing his earlier coyness, "I just wanna touch you."

And he _does_ , pressing his thumbs against Sam's hipbones, tracing the jut of them where they stand out beneath his skin, emphasised by the low waist of his jeans that are just a little bit too loose. He smoothes his hands up Sam's sides, over his chest, until one of his hands is over Sam's heart, fingertips barely reaching the scar that comes down just across his collarbone. Sam leans forward but Dean pushes back, softly, holding him still, feeling Sam's pulse jump under the palm of his hand.

The air, already thick and hot with the beginnings of a southern summer, sizzles and sparks for a split second before both of them are moving again. Sam bares his neck as Dean's mouth meets the skin there- he's careful not to leave marks with his teeth, at least none that'll last or none in places that clothes won't hide later. He knows he could spend hours on Sam's neck, his shoulders, counting every freckle with his mouth, and he will, but _later_.

His hand slips from Sam's chest and he grabs Sam's ass instead, reaching down the back of Sam's jeans, thanking God that they're a size or two too big. He lifts his head to kiss Sam's (soft and smart and perfect) mouth again while he thumbs Sam's jeans open with his free hand, eventually giving up on doing this one-handed and sliding his other hand around front so he can finally wrap his fingers around Sam's dick.

" _Fuck_." The word is something of an explosion from Sam's mouth, the 'f' formed with his teeth sharp on Dean's bottom lip, the rest of the word cried out right into Dean's open mouth. Dean's open and smiling mouth, his coyness returning when Sam arches his back, shoulders pressed hard to the wall behind him as he fucks desperately into Dean's fist, fingers digging into Dean's back through his shirt, silently begging for _more, more, more._

At first, Dean adjusts his grip just slightly, tightening and relaxing his fist in time with the jerks of Sam's hips. Eventually, though, he stops letting Sam do so much of the work- stops letting him have so much of the control. He grabs Sam's hip with one hand, hard enough to bruise, and holds him still while he jacks Sam off with the other hand, fingers starting to get slick with precome when Sam gets close, letting the pad of his thumb slip over the head of Sam's dick in a way that makes Sam's dick jump in his hand, makes Sam's whole body jump in his arms.

Sam is babbling now where he wasn't before, words falling from his mouth, a litany that is as reverent as it is fevered.

"Oh, fuck, Dean I'm gonna come, I'm gonna-"

Dean suddenly steps back, taking his hands off of Sam entirely, and he can almost feel Sam shaking through the air. The idea hits him out of nowhere, an impulse he couldn't have predicted and definitely can't ignore- he wants Sam to beg for it.

"Ask me," he hisses, looking Sam right in the eyes, more pupil than iris at this point. Sam doesn't even hesitate.

" _Please_ , Dean." He's so out of breath, his voice, so wrecked that Dean would be worried if he weren't so turned on by it. "Let me come, Dean, _please_ -"

"Well, since you said please."

Dean puts his hand back on Sam's dick and Sam is finished, done for, coming in thick streams over his own stomach and Dean's as well, staining Dean's shirt, clinging to Dean's shoulders when his legs threaten to give out, swearing all the while- _oh God oh God oh God_.

Dean kisses him again like he wants to know _exactly_ what Sam's blasphemies taste like, like he just wants to devour Sam right here and now. Sam thought that the high was starting to dissipate, but Dean's mouth strings him along, Sam's dick pulsing in Dean's hand until he's come all he can, on the verge of aching with it as every last desperate sound is wrung out him.

This leaves them both a mess, Dean's fingers sticky and dripping and Sam gasping for air, a thin sheen of sweat sticking his hair to his forehead, body held so tightly between Dean and the wall that he's surprised his bare shoulders aren't full of splinters by the time his whited-out vision starts to clear. He feels boneless but lead-legged, heavy and weightless all at once, his breaths coming easier and deeper as he levels out. His head still feels feather-light, even as the blood flows back into his head. He just keeps kissing Dean almost frantically, like reeling in a lifeline, hand-over-hand as his tongue slides easily against Dean's until his voice finally finds him again.

"Dean." Because honestly, what else is there to say right now?

"Sam," Dean says back, slightly mocking but slightly not. He wipes his hands clean on his already sullied shirt and then peels it right off, pulling it inside out and dropping it somewhere behind him.

Sam is on him immediately after that, letting his hands wander Dean's chest, palms sliding without self-consciousness or pretense, fingers spreading, pressing hard enough to fit against the shape of Dean's rib cage, the other hand dropping to find a scar he knows is there, doesn't have to see to find, tiny and soft just over Dean's right hip. It's the only scar Dean has that didn't come from hunting; touching it brings back memories of several birthdays back, when Dean's appendix nearly killed him after a werewolf had failed to. Sam, just turned eleven, awed and amazed by the surgical scar when Dean showed it to him in the hospital, like scars weren't something they saw every day, like Sam wasn't already well-versed in the art of throwing stitches into Dean's skin, like the only difference between Sam and the doctors were several years of school and a little more finesse.

One of Sam's hands drops lower, tracing the shape of Dean's dick through his jeans, feeling the heat of him, even through the layers of his clothes, the heat of Dean's breath as it comes shorter and harsher against his face. Sam's brain keeps tripping on the fact that this is _his_ , that Dean is hard like this for _him_ \- it makes his stomach flip and his mouth water. It's the easiest thing in the world for him, letting his knees give just enough so that he can slide down to kneel at Dean's feet, looking up at Dean through his lashes and grinning at the surprise and barely suppressed need on Dean's face.

"Sam- _fuck_ ," Dean starts, "you don't have to-"

"I _want_ to," Sam interrupts, licking his lips while he works Dean's jeans open. "I really, _really_ want to. Only-" he unzips Dean's fly, stopping short of anything else with a faltering attempt at eye contact. "I've never done- _this_ \- before, so. No making fun."

Dean feels guilty for a split second, that Sam thinks he might get made fun of- then Dean's baser possessive side kicks in and he's _real_ glad that Sam's never been on his knees for anyone else.

"Won't make fun, I swear." Dean barely breathes as Sam tugs at denim, pulling Dean's jeans down his thighs, doing the same with his boxers until Dean's dick is free, thick and hard, curved slightly toward his belly- Sam honest to God licks his lips as he looks at it and that's just about all Dean can take.

Of course, that's nothing compared to how it feels when Sam actually puts his mouth on Dean's dick, though he barely does at first, tongue darting out to lick the precome that's already leaking from the tip before he takes the whole head of Dean's dick into his mouth, eyes nearly falling closed in concentration as he takes Dean deeper, hands clinging to Dean's hips to keep himself steady when he starts to slowly bob his head, careful at first but not the least bit timid.

"How _could_ I make fun of you," Dean says softly, reaching down with one hand to push the hair from Sam's forehead, out of his eyes. "Just _look_ at you- you're so gorgeous like this, you know that?" Sam's cheeks go red and Dean takes this as his cue to keep right on talking. "You do- you look so good, on your knees for me."

Sam hums and Dean feels it, the sound reverberating from Sam's throat and going straight to Dean's dick- he groans, his hips instinctively jumping forward. Sam jumps a little, surprised, and Dean almost apologises until Sam hums again, _moans_ really, looking up at Dean and meeting his eyes.

"Oh, so that's how you want it," Dean figures, breathless. "You want me to fuck your mouth 'til you're nearly choking on it."

Sam digs his fingers into Dean's thighs and moans again as Dean braces an arm against the wall and fucks into Sam's mouth, slowly and shallowly at first, not wanting to actually hurt Sam (even if that is what Sam wants). Sam keeps his jaw relaxed, neck craned enough so he can look up at Dean without his throat closing off. His lips are slick and shining with spit, the inside of his mouth hotter and wetter than Dean's ever imagined.

Sam's tongue presses up to the underside of Dean's dick as it slides into his mouth- he almost leans forward every time Dean pulls back, like he's chasing it, like he love it, like he can't get enough. Dean pulls Sam's hair just hard enough to hold him still and picks up the pace- he can tell it's what Sam wants, can imagine Sam begging for it, can see Sam begging for it with his eyes, and Dean's never been able to deny Sam what he wants, not really.

Dean was close to begin with, being that getting someone else off turns him on more than pretty much anything else. But he's right on the edge of it now, pretty much has been since Sam got on his knees. He's been drawing it out, refusing to let it be over, he's waited too long for this to ever let it be over- he's not in control now though, he's losing it.

"Jesus- fuck, Sammy, I'm coming-"

Sam pulls off Dean's dick with a gasp, catching Dean's come in the face, in his mouth, down his neck and chest as he milks Dean through his orgasm. Dean doesn't think he's ever come so hard in his life, months and months of pent up tension releasing in a sudden rush, like getting the wind knocked out of him and then  put back into him all at once. His vision whites out for a second; he slams the wall with the palm of his hand, leaning heavily against it when it feels like he might collapse. His breaths are quick, each inhale a gasp and each exhale a cry, a moan, a word or a curse or Sam's name, he quickly loses track.

Later, he's gonna wish he'd kept his eyes open, to actually see the way Sam is looking at him- but right now, he's too lost in the moment to care, head thrown back like a drowning man kicking for the surface. He only gets there when he's completely and utterly spent, dick still throbbing even as it begins to soften in Sam's hand.

"You're a mess," Dean states the obvious, watching Sam fall back against the wall with a self-satisfied smirk, rolling his eyes and wiping his cheek clean with the back of his hand.

"Whose fault is that?" Sam's voice is hoarse, totally wrecked, and Dean can't stop himself from smiling, doesn't have to anymore.

Sam takes Dean's hand when it's offered to him, pulled swiftly up and into another clock-stopping kiss. There's something new in it now, a depth added and an edge taken off, a much more casual intimacy in the way Den cards his fingers through Sam's hair, something soft and yet insatiable about the way he licks his own come of Sam's lips, kissing Sam deeper to taste himself better. Sam's addicted now, doesn't ever see himself giving this up without a fight. The universe will have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands.

"Seriously though, you're a mess. I am too." Dean ducks down, grabbing his already soiled shirt; one of his hands stays in Sam's, fingers tangled in a single, unbreakable point of contact.

Well, if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them," Sam answers, skin still sweat-slick and sticky even as he wipes himself clean with Dean's shirt. "I'm not going near that swamp water."

"Way ahead of you." Dean turns his head, looks at where the sun is dropping in the sky- all Sam sees is Dean in profile, lips kiss-red, hair mussed and eyes bright. Sam admires it like an artist admires their own finished handiwork, appraising but appreciative, tempted to put their hands all over it and keep working it until it's perfect. Dean's pretty damn close to perfect already, Sam thinks.

* * *

The sun is well into setting by the time they pull off the main road, gravel crunching and popping beneath the tire treads as they head down a secluded path, down a hill and onto a flat, tamped down dirt. The tracks of many other cars are present from past visits, though the Impala is the only car here now. Sam can't imagine why- it's a beautiful evening. The sky is clear, the air is warm. Dean is beaming so brightly that Sam is half-sure it won't get dark when the sun finally does go down.

Dean shuts off the engine, listening for a moment to the softness of the Ocean, just out of sight behind a nearby gathering of sand dunes.

"Race you to the water," he says."

"You're on," Sam replies, and off they go.

The shore melts into the sea which melts into the sky- everything is vibrant, blues and oranges and yellows closest to the horizon, white hot light where the sun's rim meets the water's edge, this whole inlet a connect to the bayous, fresh water meeting salt, spilling out into the gulf of Mexico.

The beach they're on is west-facing, so the sun is right in their eyes, them running half-blind right towards it and out of the gathering darkness in the east. Their feet sink and slip in the fine, pale sand as they sprint down the beach. The footrace isn't won so much by speed as it is by technique- Dean can sprint, sure, but Sam is bounding, taking the biggest steps he can and falling face first as soon he's up to his knees in the water.

"I win!" he yells, sitting up just in time to see Dean standing over him, ankle deep and catching his breath.

"Not by much- I almost had you," Dean argues half-heartedly, more concerned with how Sam's hair sticks to his face, how it drips on to his shoulders, the water glistening as it slides down his body. Or alternatively, how Sam's soaking wet boxers leave nothing to the imagination.

"It ain't polite to stare," Sam mocks and pulls Dean down into the water. If Dean had seen it coming, her could have easily kept his footing- but he's been taken by surprise, so down he goes, landing on his hands and knees, right on top of Sam. There's a moment of floundering, of salt in his mouth, in his eyes and his nose. He comes back to himself only when Sam kisses him, his touch even softer underwater.

They stay like that, sitting in the shallows, the water around them getting darker as the sky does, until the sun is just a sliver on the horizon. Dean barely stops kissing Sam long enough to at least _try_ to watch it- not easily done, what with Sam in his lap, licking seawater from his neck, smiling against his skin and telling Dean to _pay attention, come on, Dean, pay attention._ The orange in the sky disappears, yellow bruised green briefly before the blues go dark purple and overtake it altogether. Dean doesn't even notice.

It isn't until a minute later, when the sun has completely set on this unforgettable day, that Dean remembers why it's dangerous to be out after dark.

"We should go- Dad might be back soon- if we're not there he'll be pissed."

"Who cares?" Sam's fingernails drag across Dean's scalp, making him shiver. "It's my birthday- I'm eighteen now, so I can do _whatever I want_."

"Uh-huh." There isn't a cloud in the sky- the moonlight makes everything shimmer, Sam's skin pearly white under Dean's hands. He wants nothing more to give in, to not have to be the voice of reason here, to not have to fight the impulse to let Sam have his way.

"I have something for you," he says, thinking of the cake that they still haven't eaten, which is still sitting in its box on the front seat. It's the only thing he can think of that's even close to a reason for leaving. "It's in the car."

They end up sitting on the hood of the Impala in the glow of the headlights, eating cake with their hands, sucking icing off of each other's fingers and kissing it out of each other's mouths. Dean thinks about bending Sam over the car and fucking him silly, like he's been thinking about doing all day, all week, all year, and knows that Sam would let him- but then they'd just be a mess again, and then they might just never leave the beach- they might just get carried away by the tide.

When they do get back to the cabin, John isn't there yet. They drop onto the old mattress, bodies lighter than ever, both of them drifting off in a matter of minutes, curled in toward each other like closed parentheses.

Both of them sleep better than they have in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: S E X. also overuse of italics probably but that's just how I do.
> 
> also, I was re-reading the fics of [candle_beck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/candle_beck/pseuds/candle_beck/works?fandom_id=27) and found the one that let not man put asunder (and this chapter specifically) was inspired by! it's [High Wire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/178944).
> 
> I know it took a long time for me to finish this chapter, but I hope it was worth the wait- I promise not to make you wait another month for the next part :)

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are great, comments are better <3


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